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Warhammer 40,000: Discussione Generalis V

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OH sorry, what I meant to say he can challenge him if either he can catch Eldrad off guard, or his psychic powers drained or in a compromising position
 
@Everyone

So, apparently, there's going to be a big AdMech vs Necron Campaign in April, titled "The Battle for Mars" going by rumors.
 
I really liked it, too.

Did you see the bit about the Custodes preventing the Necrons from awakening a new C'tan shard?
 
I did, yeah. I also liked just how ridiculous some of their relics are.

Need to fully read through it in more detail as opposed to just combing through, though.
 
Same, lol.

I'm sad that Valerian isn't even mentioned. He's an amazing character. And him and Aleya are the best couple.
 
Aleya is the purest introspective gal.


In a time when so much was lost, we were found.

It truly amazes me now, thinking back, knowing more than I did, that the Imperium's grasp on us had been let slip so completely. We held within our hands the kernel of salvation, and we were forgotten.

To be sure, we had always served, here and there ― they still had to garrison their Black Ships, and there were inquisitors who understood our value ― but in essence they had let us wither.

I explained this to Valerian, a long time later, when I was still angry. He did his best to understand that, but I could not help contrast the life he had enjoyed, cloistered in his halls of gold, immersed in the finest and the oldest things of a fading empire, when we were in the emptiness, scratching for survival as horrific tides lapped at our ankles.

It was all so stupid. That's the great danger that condemns us ― not daemon blades, but dumb ignorance. We've become a stupid race, glorying in the easy goals of anger and piety.

Then again, I'm aware my perspective is unusual. You see reality differently, lacking a soul. It's a harder place, I think. Its edges are sharper.

There are no gods in my world. The things other people see, I do not. Even He is not a god to us, though saying that out loud would soon see me in a gaol and on the racks.

Not that I'd ever say it out loud. Not that I'd ever say anything out loud.

I don't talk much these days.
 
Finished reading the entirety of the Thousand Sons Codex. Not only is the actual new lore great stuff, but it also has a hilarious amount of fantastic feats, ranging from High 6-A to 4-B. I will make a big post sharing it all.
 
Oh good. I just finished it as well and was worried I'd have to share all the good stuff. lol

I also like the implication that Ahriman and Magnus have basically just been meme-ing everyone for 10,000 years for the hell of it.
 
I like the story of the guy who got shown a vision of him obtaining godhood by Tzeentch and then goes to spend several millennia working to reach that goal... Only to be rewarded by being transformed into Cthulhu.
 
Okay, so let's get it started with.

The Thousand Sons are a Legion of sorcerers and spectral warriors, and are the most favoured mortal servants of the Chaos God Tzeentch ― the Great Conspirator, the Architect of Fate, the Changer of the Ways. Driven by an undying desire for vengeance, as well as an insatiable lust for arcane power and daemonic knowledge, they launch their nightmarish wars against the forces of the Imperium. Whole swathes of realspace are left burning in their wake, yet each battle is but a single step in a larger plan, a lone ripple in the corrupted stream of fate.
Introduction of the Thousand Sons.

The air crackles with warp energy as the Thousand Sons make their approach. An aura of maddening flux radiates from the psychic core of the Traitor Legion, twisting hope into despair as the Chaos-bound warriors emerge onto the battlefield from tears in reality. As their warp presence flares even brighter, time shifts unnaturally, stretching seconds into seeming eternities and crushing minutes into fleeting moments. The only anchors to reality that remain are the racing heartbeats of the fearful and the incessant pounding of Rubric Marines advancing in perfect unison.
From the silently trudging ranks comes a hail of inferno bolts. These ensorcelled projectiles unleash the baleful energies of the immaterium upon impact, tearing through armour and riving flesh with ease. Even when the enemy returns fire, the Thousand Sons press on unabated. Salvoes of shots ricochet harmlessly off the Rubric Marines' ancient, ornate plating, and energy blasts dissipate in the warp fields that surround each Heretic Astartes. As the lifeless legionnaires draw closer to the enemy lines, torrents of warpflame are spewed forth, reducing all in their path to bubbling heaps of melted gore and slag. Beside them, Scarab Occult Terminators heft curved blades sheathed in shimmering power fields, cleaving effortlessly through any foes that dare obstruct their advance.
Enormous battle tanks and engines of war rumble alongside the Heretic Astartes, their corrupted machine spirits enslaved to the will of their dark masters. Rivulets of Chaos energy flow over their gleaming hulls, mutating metal plating into hideously twisted faces and screaming maws. Crushing the enemy's defences with sheer weight of firepower or beneath their adamantium tracks, the vehicles then unload more Rubric Marines from their transport bays to stride wordlessly into the carnage.
The incessant annihilation perpetrated by the Thousand Sons shifts to rapacious slaughter with the charge of savage herds of Tzaangors and teeming mobs of Chaos Cultists. As their onslaught gains momentum, the cacophony of inhuman braying and bellowed prayers is added to by blasts of rugged firearms and the revving of chainswords. Ignoring those in their number who fall to incoming fire, Tzeentch's footsoldiers hurl themselves bodily into combat, revelling in the transformations they work on their enemies' flesh with every hack and gouge.
The concentration of sorcery and the psychic agony of the dying pierces the veil between realspace and the warp, drawing forth Tzeentch's daemonic servants who eagerly leap into the fray. Horrors of varied hues spill through the ruptured membrane of reality, obliterating the minds of those they behold or simply incinerating them with spouts of coruscating flames. The skies fill with floating Flamers unleashing daemonic fire upon those below and flights of Screamers that swoop down with terrifying swiftness to shred the flesh of the living with their slashing talons.
The hellscape of the battlefield becomes even more nightmarish as twisted monstrosities neither natural nor daemonic emit soul-shredding howls. Chaos Spawn ― shambling heaps of musculature, claws and jagged protrusions ― barrel forwards to eviscerate their enemies with unthinking fury. Those unfortunate foes caught in the flux field emanating from Mutalith Vortex Beasts are ravaged by hideous mutations, their internal organs bursting outwards and their bodies contorting into paradoxical configurations. Fuelled by the unquenchable anguish of entombed Heretic Astartes, Helbrutes pulverise the packed ranks that stand before them, while Daemon Engines stomp and swoop across the battlefield, blasting apart enemy armour and crushing infantry beneath their massive frames.

Prolonged description of the Thousand Sons and their armies. We get our first interesting descriptions. Most notably how the mere presence of the Thousand Sons in the battlefield heavily distorts the fabric of time and weakens the divide between realspace and the Warp.

Joining the Great Crusade to reclaim the galaxy, Magnus and his Sons fought with vigour and tactical brilliance. Their campaigns were marked by deft feints and misdirection, shattering their enemies' defences with guile and trickery rather than brute force. Using psychic illusion to obscure their advances, the Thousand Sons impelled their foes to deploy too thinly across an embattled planet, or lured the main bulk of an opposing force off world so that the remaining soldiers could be effortlessly overru. When they did engage the enemy, the Thousand Sons tended to avoid close combat, relying instead on ranged weaponry and devastating psychic assaults to secure victory. Xenos empires, enclaves of mutants and human populations who refused the dominion of the Emperor, all were consumed by the fires of Magnus and his Legion.
The powers employed by the Thousand Sons did not go unnoticed by the other Legiones Astartes. Battle-brothers witnessed their Prosperine allies tearing psychic maws in the skies above battlefields from which bolts of eldritch energy racked the enemy ranks. Alien war machines were pulverised by force of thought, and the flesh of the faithless was tortuously warped by will alone. Though Librarians of many Legions were possessed of similar psychic might, their abilities were disciplined, carefully controlled and honed to be a tool of the Imperium. The wanton fashion in which the Thousand Sons wielded their psychic energies showed no such restraint, and the effects they achieved were far more terrifying.

Description of Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons. Their psychic power was already the greatest of all of the 20 Legions, both in potency and in practice, and they had no fear to wield it.

"Echoes of the psychic scream were heard across the entire Imperium. Scores of astropathic choirs felt a terrifying power emanating from a single point in the warp. The minds of many sanctioned psykers who had been tasked with listening for whispers of the Thousand Sons were devoured in an instant, and from their ruptured bodies arose cackling Tzeentchian Daemons. Only nine survived to tell of what they saw."
- On the Rubric of Ahriman, from the Grimoire Hereticus
At this time Ahriman gathered to his side a cabal of the Legion's mightiest Sorcerers, and together they determined to undo the corruption of the flesh-change. They knew that Magnus would oppose their actions, and so Ahriman created wards of secrecy, under the cover of which his cabal's workings would go unseen. Hidden from view, they wove their mighty spell, then unleashed their creation across the Planet of the Sorcerers.
The Grimoire Hereticus records the moment that the Rubric of Ahriman was unveiled ― a roar of anguished unreality flared within the warp, a maelstrom within the maelstrom of Chaos so unimaginably powerful that even Daemons fled from its upheaval. The skies on the Planet of the Sorcerers were enveloped by iridescent storms and torn by streaks of polychromatic lightning, with each bolt arcing down to strike one of the corrupted Thousand Sons. It was Magnus that eventually ceased this eruption of cosmic energy, calling upon the power of Tzeentch to halt Ahriman's sorcery. But the vast majority of the Legion had already been touched by the Rubric. Those struck had indeed been stripped of their mutations, for their flesh had been reduced to dust, mystically sealed inside their ensorcelled armour for eternity.

In-Universe and Out-Of-Universe descriptions of the psychic echo and backlash of Ahriman's rubric, which reverberated throughout the entire galaxy, affected the Warp, and caused storms across an entire Daemon World.

Whether the Planet of the Sorcerers has a natural origin or is merely a by-product of Tzeentch's will, none can say. It is a warped and twisted place, even compared to the worlds of other Traitor Legions ― a locus of Chaos energy that the Thousand Sons use to fuel their diabolical craft. While it existed within the warp it orbited a constantly changing sun, an erratic orb that passed through nine distinct waxing and waning phases. The world itself is dark, rocky and violently volcanic. Leaden skies are riven by unholy power, and kaleidoscopic lightning illuminates the skyline with impossible hues. Clouds of aetheric vapour release deluges of liquefied warp energy, which flow out to the seas that lie between the planet's vast, shifting continents.
Though the Planet of the Sorcerers is anathema to natural life, its surface is rife with Tzeentch's warp-spawned children, whose hideous screams fill the air as they coalesce into existence and disperse again. Other strange beings also manage to cling to a wretched existence among the erupting peaks and flux plains. Tzaangors ― horrendous hybrids of beast, bird and man ― roam the wastelands in nomadic warbands. Enormous monstrosities march beneath raging empyric storms leaving wide wakes of devastation. Most nightmarish are the shambling Chaos Spawn, fleshy amalgams of living creatures and raw Chaos energy.

Description of Sortiarus, the Planet of the Sorcerers, Daemon World of the Thousand Sons: It orbits a constantly changing sun, and the nature of its surface and atmosphere are both constantly changing.

Many are the malshapen edifices of Tizca, but they are all dwarfed by the innermost megalith ― the Tower of the Cyclops. Looming ominously over the planet's surface, its highest levels contain Magnus' personal sanctum, and from the pinnacle comes a flood of iridescent light, cast by an entrapped tempest of glowing warp energy. This raging storm is enveloped by an orb of profane wards, and through the eye of the storm Magnus watches the manifold paths of the past, present and future. For thousands of years Magnus has observed the material universe from his tower, biding his time and planning his master strokes of avengement.
Magnus' Tower where he lies in meditation, observing the numerous paths of past, present, and possible futures.

Though the Planet of the Sorcerers is a world in constant flux, its inhabitants are governed by a strict order set in place by Magnus. The spectral remnants of the Legion's warriors, known as the Rubricae, reign over throngs of Cultists, Tzaangors and mutated warp beasts, while above the Rubricae is the former bodyguard of the Crimson King, known as the Sekhmet. Raised above all of these is the Rehati ― a coven of nine Exalted Sorcerers and Daemon Princes who are favoured by Tzeentch more than any other amongst the Thousand Sons, save Magnus himself.
From this overarching hierarchy, the Legion's forces are further divided into nine greata cults. At the head of each is a member of the Rehati who bears the ancient rank of Magister Templi. Beneath each Magister Templi are nine other Daemon Princes and Sorcerers who, though lesser in rank, still bear much of Tzeentch's favour. These nine steer the cult along the ever-changing paths of fate. Other Sorcerers hold lower positions in the cult, and along with troops, tanks, mutants and Daemon Engines are capable of claiming vast swathes of realspace for their cult masters. Each cult has worlds from which they draw resources and magical energy, and populous planets to provide them with constant streams of Cultist soldiers, slaves and subjects for their arcane experiments.
Aside from constituting a terrifying military force, each of the cults is an amalgam of the twisted minds of those in its ranks, and though inherently self serving, the members of a given cult are ultimately bent towards the same purpose. To a mortal mind, untouched by Tzeentch's corruptions, the complex plans laid out by these cults are utterly unfathomable, but to the Thousand Sons they are both a form of profane worship and a route to vengeance over the Imperium. Often, the goals of a given cult will undermine or even contradict those of the other cults. As such, the cults are wary of one another, and alliances between them are ever shifting. The power and influence of each is also in constant flux, with every cult going through cycles of activity and torpidity as befits their inscrutable machinations.

Hierarchy of the Thousand Sons.

It is extremely rare for the entirety of a cult to deploy in a single war zone, though when this does happen the fabric of reality quakes in their presence.
A full Thousand Sons cult can cause the fabric of reality to quake with their mere presence.

The Cult of Prophecy is guided by incessant whispers that bleed from the warp. From these they divine the outcomes of multiple futures, and seek out events that can be twisted to their own purpose.
The Cult of Time is similarly enthralled by the future, as well as the present and past. They view the flow of time as an unwrought resource that can be shaped into a weapon. By their victories, ripples are sent both forwards and backwards in time, so that their enemies may be defeated before they are even engaged.
The Cult of Mutation embodies the transfiguring aspect of Tzeentch. Not only do they embrace the warping of flesh, but also the warping of reality itself. By their hand civilised planets are transformed into Daemon worlds, and entire populations moulded into grotesque abominations.
The Cult of Scheming is perhaps the most insidious of the cults, for the creation of convoluted plots is to them a form of profane worship. Every conquest and withdrawal is a perfectly planned manoeuvre, a single step that leads towards some unseen master stroke.
The Cult of Magic is dedicated to the pure and unfettered use of sorcery. Their bloody campaigns are launched to secure arcane objects held by Imperial, xenos and other Chaos forces. These artefacts are then used as foci in the weaving of devastating spells.
The Cult of Knowledge is also drawn to the many curios hidden throughout the galaxy, particularly tomes of eldritch learnings, dark secrets and paradoxical logics. Through such lore, the cult is able to extrapolate the weaknesses in their enemies, and in the fabric of reality itself.
The Cult of Change is anathema to order. They are the great unravellers, launching their armies wherever civilisation and reason exist. Similarly, in places of utter anarchy, the cult appears to impose their ever-shifting will.
The Cult of Duplicity is unique within the Legion in that it both is and is not guided by a unified desire. The Sorcerers of this cult are by their very nature deceivers, at once appearing fractured and singular in their purpose. As such, it is impossible to know whether the sects within the cult are acting independently or as part of a singular, terrifying plan.
The Cult of Manipulation is similarly deceptive, using its tendrillar web of influence to sway the actions of its enemies. Vast networks of mortal and daemonic spies allow the cult to oversee their plots as they unfold through assassination, possession and the wreaking of pure havoc.

Description of the Nine Cults themselves. Most notable are the Cult of Prophecy, which are basically Farseers, The Cult of Time, which can manipulate the fabric of time to the point that they can affect both the past and the future, and manipulate causality to kill their enemies before they even engage in battle, The Cult of Mutation which can mutate and warp entire planets, transforming them into Daemon Worlds, and the Cult of Knowledge which learn the weaknesses in the fabric of reality itself.

In the wake of the Rubric of Ahriman, the Crimson Sons were exiled from the Planet of the Sorcerers, and have wrought mayhem in isolation from the main body of the Thousand Sons ever since. Like so many sects in the Cult of Duplicity, how their actions ultimately serve the will of Magnus is unknown to all but the Crimson King
Potentially still loyalist Thousand Sons, maybe?

2. Cult of Time ― Enslaving the Ancients
In their wars against the Necrons of the Nephrekh Dynasty, the Sorcerers of the Cult of Time seek to uncover the methods by which the star gods known as the C'tan were made slaves.

The Cult of Time is trying to enslave the C'tan Shards.

5. Cult of Magic ― The Scintillating Straits
As Imperial fleets try desperately to pass between the warp storms of the Maelstrom and the Planet of the Sorcerers, they are riven by strands of astral fire woven by the Cult of Magic.

The Cult of Magic's... magic is powerful enough to destroy entire fleets of Imperial Ships.

When the Thousand Sons march to war, the very stars tremble before their displays of sorcerous might, great swathes of the galaxy are consumed by warpfire, and anarchy and madness reign supreme. Yet each battle is but a component in their impenetrable stratagems, a single rite with a purpose inscrutable to all but the most twisted of minds.
4-A Thousand Sons When? Jokes aside, this is obviously poetic language.

In their campaigns the Thousand Sons conquer vast tracts of realspace from which they draw the resources for their arcane war efforts. As they advance across the stars, their knowledge-lust brings them to sites of eldritch power, places saturated with the magic of profane rituals performed millennia ago. Some are worlds whose ancient inhabitants worshipped the Chaos Gods; others are planets with hateful entities buried deep beneath their surface. The baleful energy that hangs thick around such sites creates weak points in the veil separating realspace from the warp. Here, the Thousand Sons commune with empyric consciousnesses, beckoning them to enter the material plane and entreating them to share prescient visions of the skeins of fate.
These places of power also serve as anchor-points to which Exalted Sorcerers and Daemon Princes tether their enormous, system-spanning spells. Gigantic hexes are etched into the fabric of space itself, corrupting the reality that lies within their bounds and causing it to tear violently ope. From these gaping wounds the warp bleeds into existence, ravaging the minds of mortals with nightmarish perplexions and birthing daemonic beasts that descend hungrily upon the worlds of the living.

When amped, the Exalted Sorcerers and Daemon Princes of the Thousand Sons can weave system-spanning spells, placing hexes on the fabric of space which corrupt reality itself, generating Warp Storms.

A sect of the Thousand Sons may join forces with the warbands of another Chaos Legion, only to turn upon their allies when the fickle winds of fate shift, or they may drive xenos invaders from an Imperial world only to sacrifice the planet's population in a pyric ritual.
Thousand Sons sorcerers can literally ritualistically burn an entire planet to offer its population in sacrifice to Tzeentch.

Omen of Omniscience
Hasophet, Magister of the Mind-Eaters thrallband, receives a vision of his Tzeentch-ordained destiny. He sees a time in his future when he will devour the thoughts and memories of an entire world, and in doing so will achieve apotheosis. The Mind-Eaters embark on the first of nine hundred and ninety-nine rites that will lead to this portended moment.

The Thousand Son Magister Hasophet receives a vision of his destiny, where he will devour the souls of an entire world and achieve godhood. To reach this fate, he must conclude 999 rites. Hold onto your seats, cause this will come back later.

First War in the Webway
A coven of Sorcerers from the Kindled Spirits thrallband conducts a great ritual in the webway, hoping to gain access to the scream-filled city of Commorragh, the home of the Drukhari. Before their ritual is complete, hundreds of Drukhari, led by troupes of Harlequins, pour from an invisible portal and launch themselves at the Rubricae defending the coven. With their spell sundered, the Kindled Spirits counter-attack, their blasts of warpflame eventually breaching the fabric of the webway itself. As the arterial walls of the webway buckle and collapse outwards, the backlash strands the combatants in a shattered pocket-reality with no way out. There are whispers that the fighting has continued ever since, and that each warrior is fated to die and be reborn in an endless cycle for the rest of time.

The First War in the Webway: Ahriman's eternal journey to join the Aeldari literature club.

Fortress of Infinities
The Imperial Fists strike force Anvil of Dorn boards a fire-wreathed space hulk on the western fringe of the Segmentum Solar. Within, they encounter Manat, Exalted Sorcerer of the Cult of Time, and after a gruelling war of attrition through mutating corridors, Captain Dantarian strikes down the Thousand Sons warlord in single combat. But in the moment of the Exalted Sorcerer's death there is a crack of aetheric power, and the Imperial Fists find themselves back on their strike cruiser, preparing to board the space hulk as though for the first time. Only an unquiet flicker buried deep within each battle-brother's psyche suggests they may have walked this path before, and none can determine why they seem to have sustained so many casualties before even engaging the enemy. They battle Manat again, and again the Exalted Sorcerer's death transports them to the moment before the siege. After eight iterations the Anvil of Dorn is all but obliterated, and the ninth sees Captain Dantarian alone march aboard the space hulk, there to meet his death against the laughing Manat.

The power of an Exalted Sorcerer of the Cult of Time: Even as he dies, he locks the Imperial Fists on an endless time loop, except that their deaths from the previous iteration of the events carry onto the new one, while those of the Thousand Sons don't, and eventually all the Imperial Fists are utterly annihilated. I genuinely think this is terrifying.

Crystallised Night
An endless psychic scream lures Vasellisk the Shrouded, Sorcerer warlord of the Night Lords, to the obsidian mines on Xanthematos. As his warband sets about butchering the Imperial work crews, the terror of those slain continues to linger in the form of disembodied warp-gheists. The sight of spectral figures crowding the mines and howling with fear blinds Vasellisk to the true sorcery at play, for the planet has been hex-bound by Hasophet and his Mind-Eaters. As Vasellisk revels in the resonant terror, the Mind-Eaters seal the mines with the Night Lords inside. In the final twist of Hasophet's curse, the spirits of the dead burst into warpfire, filling the subterranean tunnels with screaming flame. By the time the mines are reopened, every last Night Lord has been reduced to ash ― all except for Vasellisk the Shrouded, whose body has been melted into a lump of dark glass. This Shrouded Crystal is the foreseen prize of Hasophet's seven hundred and sixty-fifth rite, and it pulses with the psychic energy of the Sorcerer it once was.

Hasophet returns, and this time he quite literally casts a hex on an entire planet. He's already on Rite No. 765.

A Curse Returns
Shortly after reuniting with their long-lost Wulfen brethren, the Space Wolves find their home system engulfed by raging warp storms and a massive daemonic invasion. The Grey Knights and Dark Angels arrive to aid the Sons of Russ in expelling the threat, but the Imperial forces are coerced into a state of infighting by one of Tzeentch's most devious Daemon servants ― the Changeling. It is the Grey Knights who first notice the warp storms forming a pattern, one recorded in their oldest tomes of lore and not seen in the galaxy for ten thousand years. It is a symbol of vengeance last used on Prospero by the Thousand Sons.

Shortly before the events of Wrath of Magnus, the Solar System of Prospero is engulfed by raging Warp Storms which form the symbol of the Thousand Sons, and massive daemonic invasions soon follow. This is most likely the work of Magnus himself.

As the Imperial lines hold out against the onslaught, the Silver Towers align with sites of geomantic power and begin siphoning the internal energy of Fenris, and on the third day the air is riven with fire. Sorcerers around the planet pour their psychic energy into this sky-fire, and within each of the Silver Towers a captive Space Wolf is boiled alive in a cauldron of gore. The conflux of dark magics creates a weak point in reality ― a doorway through which strides the Daemon Primarch Magnus. The Crimson King joins with Ahriman and his other most powerful acolytes, and together they begin their rituals in the hearts of the Silver Towers. The resultant flow of mutagenic energy ravages the surface of Fenris, causing the molten magma powering the Fang to fill with Daemons and bubble up to the surface.
The Thousand Sons drain the geothermal energy of Fenris for three days straight, and then lit up the planet's atmosphere on fire, merely as a ritual to summon the Daemon Primarch Magnus into realspace. His mere arrives ravages the surface of Fenris, causing eruptions across the whole world (Literally every Fenrisean Summer).

Wages of Change
After undermining the millennium-long battle plan of Korthuphos ― an Exalted Sorcerer of the Cult of Magic ― Hasophet is challenged to a psychic duel. As the two lock minds in combat it is clear that Korthuphos is the more powerful psyker, but Hasophet unsheathes the Dagger of Reflections, acquired centuries ago during his eighty-seventh rite. The mind-flames cast out by Korthuphos are drawn towards the shimmering dagger before being forced back in a thunderous wave, pulverising the brain matter of the Exalted Sorcerer. Korthuphos begins to slump over with liquid oozing from his helm, but before he hits the ground Hasophet plunges the ensorcelled dagger into his fallen opponent's chest, carving out his stillbeating hearts. They are the trophies of his eight hundred and twenty-eighth rite

Hasophet is back. He dueled with another Exalted Sorcerer for literally a thousand-years. Actually what.

An Ancient Foe Awakens
Word reaches Magnus of the resurrection of Roboute Guilliman. Knowing the loyalist warlord will try to reunite with the Emperor on Terra, Magnus reads the fluctuating strands of fate to divine his brother's path. He leads his armada to the edge of the raging nether-realm of warp storms known as the Maelstrom, and there waits for the arrival of the Terran Crusade. When Guilliman's fleet emerges from its warp-jump, it is greeted with pummelling fire from the heretic craft. Against overwhelming numbers and the element of surprise, Guilliman is still somehow able to direct the Imperial ships to hold out. But the Crimson King calls to the warp, summoning coiling tendrils of power to coalesce around the ships of the Terran Crusade, drawing them into the Maelstrom. Magnus knows this is not the hour of the loyalist Primarch's death, but Guilliman's fate has been set on a path most suited to the Crimson King's designs

Magnus can quite literally control the tides of the Warp to divert fleets of ships from their path. This is like controlling the ocean but on an interstellar-scale.

Gods of War
Magnus waits for Roboute Guilliman to make his way to Terra, but instead of travelling to the portal beneath the Emperor's Palace, as Magnus had hoped, the Terran Crusade emerges on Luna. Nevertheless, Magnus follows the beleaguered Imperial force, storming from the webway onto the moon's surface to stand beneath the orb of Holy Terra. As Magnus and Guilliman behold each other, the Crimson King smiles in anticipation of the combat to come. His Rubric Marines and Scarab Occult Terminators advance upon the Imperial forces, spraying them with gouts of warpfire and fusillades of inferno bolts. Magnus' psychic might erupts in a destructive nova, shattering the bodies of his enemies and shielding his own forces from harm. Guilliman then launches himself at Magnus, and the moon's crust trembles with the impact of their blows. Across the plains, craters and wreckage of ancient frigates the two demigods battle, Guilliman a titan of martial prowess, Magnus armed with the unbridled sorceries of the warp.
As the Primarchs fight, the ranks of Thousand Sons continue to pour unending fire into the remnants of the Terran Crusade and their Imperial reinforcements. Guilliman's ally ― the Shadowseer Sylandri Veilwalker ― weaves her own magic to undo the runic bindings placed by the Sorcerers of the Thousand Sons on the webway portal. With a roar of hate and rage Guilliman strikes his opponent, while Magnus unleashes an uncontrolled sorcerous blast. The resulting shock wave sends the Crimson King reeling back through the portal, and in a fateful instant Veilwalker seals the gateway behind him. Within the labyrinth-dimension Magnus roars in fury. The day he saw fated to visit ruin on the Emperor has been taken from him. But his anger is short-lived, for looking to the future he sees a great darkness that will soon envelop the Imperium, and many paths of fate that will lead him to the vengeance he seeks…

The Battle between Roboute Guilliman and Magnus the Red on the moon. They were literally shaking and cracking the moon with the mere shockwaves of their blows.

Second part coming soon.
 
Matthew Schroeder said:
I like the story of the guy who got shown a vision of him obtaining godhood by Tzeentch and then goes to spend several millennia working to reach that goal... Only to be rewarded by being transformed into Cthulhu.
Wot

Story link or more details please.
 
Broken Shield
The Cult of Manipulation forge a hex to extinguish the Aspis star in Segmentum Solar. The growing solar storm alerts the Adeptus Custodes to the Thousand Sons' machinations, and a squad of Allarus Custodians, joined by a Grey Knights strike force and a large contingent of Skitarii, set out to locate and eradicate the cabal, but as they approach the Aspis System an enormous solar flare separates the Imperial forces. While the Grey Knights and Skitarii find and destroy the profane wards sustaining the hex, the Adeptus Custodes are sent adrift through the warp, into the clutches of the waiting Thousand Sons.

Sorcerers of the Cult of Manipulation cast a hex around a star, and proceed to provoke and manipulate massive Solar Flares which destroy the Imperial Ships.

The Stygius Kingdom
Magnus the Red leads a devastating assault on the Stygius Sector. Cut off from the Astronomican, the Imperial defenders fall quickly to Cultist uprisings, daemonic invasions and attacks from scores of thrall bands. Only the stubbornness of the Mordian Iron Guard and the arrival of the Aeldari prevent the system from being overrun, though even these events have long been foreseen by Magnus, and are part of his wider plan for the transformation of Stygius.

Mmm... Magnus the Red leading his forces on a planet, and eventually being stopped by the arrival of the Aeldari? Perhaps it was here that he and Eldrad had their duel? Come on, Ynnari Codex, we're counting on you to expand on that shit.

The Impassable Sea
Space Wolves from Engir Krakendoom's Great Company set a course for Prospero, hoping to reach the Planet of the Sorcerers and once more bring ruin to the Thousand Sons' home world. But no matter what path they take, eerily sentient warp eddies fling them far off track.

More evidence over the Thousand Sons' manipulation of the Warp Tides, which are described here as eerily sentient.

The Silent War
A cloud of particulate dust falls over the heavily fortified spire-convent of the Sisters of Silence on Gassima. It is soon followed by a more destructive storm as suits of Rubric armour bearing the sigil of the Blades of Magnus fall from the sky like meteors, smashing through vaulted ceilings and cratering the courtyards. As the Sisters of Silence reel from the bombardment, sheets of lightning crack through the atmosphere and the dust cloud coalesces around the lifeless Rubric suits. The dust ― which is in fact the essence of Thousand Sons warriors ― pours into the armour, and one by one they stand up and raise their weapons. The spire-convent is obliterated in the battle, and every Sister of Silence slaughtered, though even faced with death not one allows herself to scream

The Thousand Sons face against the Sisters of Silence. Despite relying almost entirely on psychic prowess, and facing against psychic-nulls which render most psykers powerless, they are still capable of creating a storm of dust, summoning lightning, and obliterating an entire fortress with their power. Also Rubric Marines can fall from the skies like meteors, leaving craters when they crash.

Power Unbound
In their war with the Necrons of the Nephrekh Dynasty, the Silver Sons loose a quartet of Heldrakes upon a Tesseract Vault. The winged monstrosities tear the prison open, freeing the C'tan Shard within and allowing it to begin a years-long rampage through Nephrekh space.

The Thousand Sons face off against the Necrons and unleash a C'tan Shard. They are being unleashed quite often as of late, no?

The Psychophage of Mangel III
Hasophet and his Mind-Eaters descend upon the Imperial hive world of Mangel III amidst an ongoing T'au invasion. Before landing the Sorcerer shatters the Shrouded Crystal in orbit, casting its shards throughout the atmosphere to summon an impenetrable darkness which surrounds the planet. Cut off from orbital reinforcements and relays, the T'au armies and planetary defence forces continue fighting in utter confusion. In the Valley of Sacrifice, between the lines of the battling armies, the Mind-Eaters array the trophies and fetishes acquired from their nine hundred and ninety-eight preceding rites in a great crescent, and between the horns of the crescent Hasophet mounts an enormous pyre. From its pinnacle he beholds the encroaching T'au and Imperial forces ― they are to be his, their thoughts and memories devoured as was foretold.
Holding aloft the hearts of Korthuphos, Hasophet ignites his pyre with their blood, incanting an oath to Tzeentch as the flames begin to lap his armour. The sudden rush of energy towards Hasophet shreds the minds of the hundreds of thousands of combatants on Mangel III, siphoning their very life force into the Sorcerer. But as the Grand Conspirator's changes take hold Hasophet screams in agony. The armies on the horizon are pulled physically towards him like gnats caught in a thundering vortex. Ranks of screaming bodies and enormous war engines fly across the darkened land, colliding with Hasophet where they are quickly absorbed by his warping form. His body devours metal and flesh with equal voraciousness as it continues to grow, howling in excruciation from newly forming maws. His mass pupates, not into the form of a Daemon Prince, but to that of a Mutalith Vortex Beast. The warp vortex emanating from the hideous creature extends outwards with each newly consumed sacrifice until it encircles the planet, and with a final mind-tearing scream Mangel III itself is torn from realspace. In its place there is left only a perpetual dark shroud and an echo of Hasophet's final, pitiful cry.

Our boy Hasophet is back at it again, and this time unleashing his final rite. He has grown much as a sorcerer over the millennia, and now can shroud an entire planet in impenetrable clouds of darkness which cut off all communication, be it vox or psychic. He performs his final rituaal, which allows him to absorb the souls and memories of the population of Mangel III. However, he attains apotheosis not by ascending into the ranks of the Daemon Princes, but by becoming a Mutalith Vortex Beast the size of a planet, which then proceeds to devour and pull the entire planet into the Warp with it.

Magnus was created by the Emperor of Man as a giant, physically and mentally towering over his fellow Primarchs. His abilities as a psyker were unsurpassed by all save the Emperor himself, and with honour and cunning he led the Thousand Sons to countless victories in the Great Crusade. During this time he fed his insatiable hunger for knowledge, harvesting the sorcerous learnings of the human cults and xenos races he eradicated. This dark path led to Magnus' judgement at the Council of Nikaea, the burning of his home world at the hands of the Space Wolves, and his ultimate covenant with the God of Sorcery, Tzeentch.
Where once Magnus stood as a paragon of Humanity, he is now a monstrous creature of Chaos, a Daemon Primarch bound to the sinister and subtle will of the Great Conspirator. His skin, ever red, crackles and glows with the warp-matter it has absorbed, and from his back sprout enormous wings emblazoned with runes of Tzeentchian power. With his single eye he sees through the immaterium and realspace alike, weaving the strands of manifold futures and winding them to form a noose with which he can ensnare his enemies. Though he once sought knowledge for its own purpose, he now seeks only that which will ensure the Imperium burns.
In a galaxy riven by war, there are few things more terrifying to behold on the battlefield than a Daemon Primarch. Where Magnus strides, the fabric of reality strains and breaks, time and space wrenching violently apart to allow his passage. The very sight of him sears the mind with shifting, paradoxical images, glimpses of the warp incomprehensible to mortal thought. Those over whom his shadow falls are plunged into darkness, their egos collapsed into a dense singularity as Magnus' daemonic presence encroaches upon their psyches. Even dauntless warriors who have braved countless horrific conflicts find their courage torn to shreds when the lord of the Thousand Sons is stoked to fury.
From the glowing fires of Magnus' eye come blasts of raw psychic energy. With each earth-shattering bolt Titans and armoured columns are torn from reality, their very substance reduced to clouds of screaming atoms. As the Daemon Primarch draws near to his foes they are caught in a field of fluctuating energy, an aura of malefic sentience that twists existence to suit Magnus' will. The most impenetrable defences are laid bare by this warping influence, leaving the enemy open to slaughter.

Description of the Daemon Primarch Magnus' staggering psychic power. Even as a "mortal" Primarch, his psychic powers far surpassed that of any other Primarch and were second only to the Emperor's in the Imperium. Since then, his powers has greatly increased.

With his one eye he sees further than he had before (Ohai Odin), observing past, present, and the various futures simultaneously. mere presence causes the fabric of reality to break, time and space wrenching violently wherever he passes. His mere sight sears the mind with maddening and incomprehensible visions of the Warp, and if you stand in his shadow you are plunged into darkness and your ego collapses onto a singularity (I kid you not). His mere gaze unleashes earth-shattering bolts of energy that reduce Titans to atoms, and his mere aura twists the existences of those around him.

Ahzek Ahriman is the most powerful Sorcerer in the Thousand Sons' history, second only to Magnus in psychic ability. Before their fall to Chaos, he was the Legion's Chief Librarian and Magister Templi of the Corvidae, entrusted with sifting through the shifting strands of fate to divine the Legion's future. He was a mighty military leader, the keeper of the Book of Magnus, and ― ultimately ― it was by his Rubric that the Thousand Sons succumbed to irrevocable damnation.
For the ruin he brought upon the Thousand Sons, Ahriman was cast from the Planet of the Sorcerers, banished until he had completed the impossible task of understanding the true nature of Tzeentch. Since then he has wandered in exile, gathering ranks of Rubricae and Sekhmet warriors to his side, seeking out the galaxy's most powerful artefacts and its most arcane secrets, and carving a complex path of fiery devastation through the Imperium.

Ahzek Ahriman, the second most powerful Thousand Son, second only to Magnus. Every other psychic feat in this book that is not a combined ritual from an entire group, or done by Magnus, scales to him.

A Sorcerer strides to the battlefield wreathed in scintillating flames and clouds of crackling aetheric lightning. With a cruel gesture he bends the fabric of time and space to his will, crushing the bones of his enemies in enfolded pockets of reality or flensing the sanity from their minds with a blasphemous whisper. Each Sorcerer is nightmare given mortal form, capable of harnessing fear and anger to drive an opposing army to tear itself apart.
The power of random Thousand Sons Sorcerers, quite haxed nameless mooks.

For a Sorcerer of the Thousand Sons, the apotheosis of their service to the Grand Conspirator is to gain immortality as a Daemon Prince. The last fragment of their mortal soul ― already warped by centuries of sadistic manipulation done unto others ― is plunged into swirling darkness, never to return. Their flesh is riven with Chaos energy, their body growing to enormous proportions to accommodate a massive surge of raw empyric matter. Muscles bulge along elongated limbs, and hands twist into many-taloned claws that drip with magic. Much of their armour and weaponry is absorbed into their new form. The Tzeentchian runes and icons bedecking their wargear become embedded in sinew, where they pulsate with bestial vigour.
This metamorphosis renders the Daemon Prince completely unrecognisable from the living creature it once was. Its skin takes on colours more pleasing to the Changer of the Ways, growing intensely bright, terrifyingly dark, or taking on variegated hues in fluctuating configurations. Its very flesh shifts between translucency and absolute opaqueness, and curved horns and thorny gnarls sprout from the Daemon Prince's body. Some Daemon Princes grow great leathery wings with which they soar through the skies of battle; others develop a trailing cape of undulating tendrils. More esoteric changes may take form in a Daemon Prince as well ― shadows that burn with darkest fire and warp all that they touch, or halos of light indescribable in colour that pierce the thin layer of sanity protecting a mortal's soul from the Daemon Prince's gaze.
Though their new-found power is immense, there are still other beings whom the Daemon Princes call master. Magnus the Red commands many Daemon Princes ― they are his mightiest warlords, serving as members of his Rehati and leading his Legion's cults in conflagrant wars against the Imperium. The aura of raw magic emanating from a Daemon Prince invigorates those warriors who fight alongside him, giving them glimpses of the future and whispers of daemonic knowledge. A Daemon Prince's very existence is a manifestation of its Tzeentch-given power, and in its presence the will of the Architect of Fate is made manifest upon the battlefield. Plants wither and mutate into grotesque anomalies; the skin of enemy soldiers peels back to expose writhing muscle and shivering bone; adamantium vehicle plating and ferrocrete bunker walls erupt in gnashing mouths that cry out in anguish as the Daemon Prince approaches.
The weapons a Daemon Prince carries are well suited to their monstrous form. Where the Sorcerer may once have wielded an arcane staff or ensorcelled blade, a Daemon Prince sets about its slaughtering armed with a sword or axe wrought from warpmatter. Ripples of corruption are sent crashing outwards with each swing, and with such a weapon the Daemon Prince can sever the present from the past and future, ending an enemy champion's existence by erasing their very being. Others achieve their butchery with their talons, slicing through wave after wave of victims, spraying torrents of blood that ignite with warp fire. Those Daemon Princes in the Crimson King's service are masters of psychic malediction, and with a snarled word they can wrack an opposing army with hideous mutations or open a portal to the oblivion of the warp. Should a Daemon Prince somehow fall in battle, their existence persists in the immaterium, for they are tethered forever to their patron god. By the will of Tzeentch, and by the power of their own undying hatred, they may return to the material plane to finish their fell works, and to hunt down those enemies who dared defy them.
Where other Tzeentchian entities can only exist outside the warp for short periods of time, evaporating from existence when the maelstrom of change-magic abates, Daemon Princes can sustain their corporeal forms by waging continuous campaigns of insanity and terror. Each fiery war prosecuted and every sacrificial ritual enacted is another pluck at the strings of fate. This feeds the Daemon Prince's essence, sustaining it in the material plane and filling it with fuel for its star-spanning sorceries.

Prolongued description of Tzeentchian Daemon Princes of the Thousand Sons. They are the mightiest soldiers of the Thousand Sons in term of rank (Though named characters such as Ahriman can outrank them), and hold the greatest power. They are direct manifestations of Tzeentch, and as daemons are foreverbound to him. To merely look at a Daemon Prince is to go mad, and their very presence distorts reality around them, and even Adamantium War-Machines can be distorted and turned into howling beasts.

In battle they wield axes that slice the present from the past and from the future, erasing their foes from existence and from fate. Their psychic power is immense, and they can destroy entire armies with single words, and open gigantic portals to the Warp, and they can weave star-spanning spells, such as the ones previously described.

Tzaangor Shamans are the most exalted of their mutated kind. They are oracles and prophets, and they preach to their ilk atop flying Discs of Tzeentch. Their psychic mastery is born not of endless study, but of singular devotion to their god, and is unleashed upon their foes amidst ritual chants in the fathomless language of the Tzaangors. It is with the Shamans that the Sorcerers of the Thousand Sons make their fell pacts, though these Sorcerers are ever wary of the deals they make; the Shamans serve the fickle will of Tzeentch above all else.
On the Planet of the Sorcerers, Shamans lead herds of their kin on long pilgrimages across the constantly shifting warp-wastes. These mass migrations follow lines of power that wind across the planet's crust, converging at sites where the roiling aetheric energy is at its thickest. At these sites, they raise great flux-cairns ― megaliths inscribed with glyphs and runes, and shaped in symbols sacred to Tzeentch ― which serve as repositories for the arcane knowledge stolen and despoiled by the Tzaangor tribes. The Shamans use these to channel Tzeentch's power throughout realspace by erecting duplicate monoliths in the jungles and barrens of other worlds. The longer each simulacra remains in place, the more its warping influence bleeds into the planet on which it stands, transforming the world and preparing it for a full-scale invasio.

The power of Tzaangor Shamans, warp-beasts with sorcerous powers. When empowered in places of power and gathered in group, they can perform rituals from the Eye of Terror which affect planets throughout realspace, warping the face of said worlds and preparing them to full-scale invasions.

No creature embodies the warped will of Tzeentch more than the Mutalith Vortex Beast. These nightmarish monstrosities are as large as they are twisted, towering above infantry and even tanks as they bound across the battlefield. Their thunderous roar reverberates for miles in every direction, piercing the psyche of all in earshot and filling their minds' eyes with visions of paradoxical horror. Yet this projected terror is surpassed by the reality of the Mutalith Vortex Beast crashing into the enemy army. Its rippling musculature grows, splits and reknits as the creature thrashes violently. Massive razor-jagged claws shred through tank armour, exposing those inside to the aura of ravaging flux that surrounds the Vortex Beast. From its betentacled maw, tendrils formed from warp-putrefied inner organs flap voraciously outwards, tearing infantry limb from limb or constricting the hapless victims before drawing their crushed bodies deep inside the monster's mashing gullet.
The formation of a Mutalith Vortex Beast is an entirely unnatural process, yet they can be brought into being by the currents of warp energy that flow over the surface of the Planet of the Sorcerers. Often, this occurs when dozens of Chaos Spawn get caught in an empyric eddy and are fused together by the swirl of raw magic. These abominable conglomerations typically perish quickly, collapsing under the weight of their own incongruous form into a quivering mound of warp-infused ooze. But on occasion, the will of Tzeentch binds the hyper-mutated flesh and bone together into a monstrous composite far more deadly than the sum of its hideous parts.
Over the millennia, many Sorcerers have attempted to create their own Mutalith Vortex Beast with obscure spells to induce the gross transformation. Even when such an invocation succeeds, more often than not the Sorcerer is consumed by their own magic, their flesh being added to the writhing matter of their creation. Other Mutalith Vortex Beasts are formed from supremely powerful Sorcerers who, at the moment they believe they have achieved daemonhood, fall victim to the cruel whims of their fickle patro.
The hulking body of a Vortex Beast acts as an empyric reservoir, drawing in and absorbing Chaos energy. This energy saturates the creature's flesh, at once holding its impossible anatomy together and tearing it apart. The constant struggle between entropy and coalescence creates a swirling psychic tempest around the Mutalith Vortex Beast ― a storm of flux power that engulfs all who draw near, steadily warping their existence. The Sorcerers of the Thousand Sons revel in this change-field, watching with great pleasure as realspace is racked by strange mutations. As the Vortex Beast's flesh is torn open by cannon fire and hacking blades, torrents of unreleased power bleed onto the battlefield, causing ever more anarchic fluctuations in reality.
Before herding a Mutalith Vortex Beast to battle, the Thousand Sons harness the creature with a giant pointed star made of fire taken from atop the Tower of the Cyclops. Bound within this burning Chaos icon is an orb ― a fractured piece of the great eye that crowns Magnus' tower ― and through this burning portal the raging Chaos winds from the Planet of the Sorcerers are channelled, allowing the raw power of the Thousand Sons' world to seep freely onto the battlefield.

Prolongued descriptions of Mutalith Vortex Beasts, the thing which our boy Hasophet previously became. Once again the important bits are highlighted: They are created when dozens of Chaos Spawn are gathered together in empyrean tides, and merged through the power of raw magic. Once formed, the power of a Vortex Beast far surpasses that of the sum of its part, and on the battlefield they are a force to be reckoned.

Their howling echoes for miles and shatters psychic defenses and sends madness to all who hear it. Their tendrils can shred and rip through tanks with ease, and they are so powerful that even great and experienced sorcerers struggle to control them, and may even turn into one when trying to summon them.

And befitting their name, Vortex Beasts endlessly drain and absorb psychic power, which cause them to swell and deform further as they are satured with entropic energies. As they are shot by enemy forces, this energy leaks away from their form, and distort reality around them. This is what a random Mutalith Vortex Beast can do, and remember that Hasophet became a Vortex Beast so large and powerful it devoured a planet.

... And I guess this is it. After that there's a lot of talk of vehicles and low-level daemons that don't interest me.
 
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