It is said that the next attack that descended from the mountains above was repulsed quickly and Mortarion, leading his Death Guard, as they had become known, followed them into the fog above, massacring the remaining forces and killing the warlord. ", A Death Guard Plague Marine after emerging from the Warp, changed by the corrupting influence of the Plague God Nurgle. The power of the Warp was within him, and he was using it willingly, in spite of every one of his protestations. Thus shall you serve Nurgle best. He wanted to know why his brothers Lorgar and Fulgrim willingly trafficked with the creature's kind. The Death Guard Space Marines' once gleaming grey armour was corroded and shattered, barely containing their bloated, pustule-riddled bodies. The White Scars fleet made all haste towards Prospero, the recently ravaged homeworld of the Thousand Sons Legion. All around him were strewn the bodies of the dead and dying for miles in all directions. As they interpreted the astropathic messages they received in a contradictory manner, they began to suspect that things were not right. However, the Emperor's slaying of the Primarch's adoptive father -- the Emperor's denial of his final vengeance, of the proof that he was worthy -- became a grudge Mortarion forever after held against Him. Primarch Mortarion of the Death Guard Legion surrounded by his Deathshroud Honour Guard. I believe that he does want to save mortarion and maybe he will. His design was based on John Blanche's artwork, a depiction of Mortarion as the 31st Millennium's reaper of men. Mortarion, Primarch of the Death Guard Legion before the Horus Heresy wielding his massive scythe Silence and his sidearm known as The Lantern. Abaddon the Despoiler united the disparate factions of the Eye of Terror and unleashed the 13th Black Crusade to bring ruin to the world that had proven his nemesis for millennia. [12], By the time of the Battle of the Kalium Gate late in the Heresy, Mortarion's forbidden knowledge had grown considerably. [4], After Roboute Guilliman was resurrected in the closing days of the 41st Millennium, Mortarion sensed his brother's rebirth. But as others have said, 'salvation' can also just mean death. Something burned in him, dark like old embers. They were massive, heavier-set than the Khan's retinue, hunched at the shoulder and leaking pale green vapour from the last of the teleportation beams. The loyalist Primarch decapitated Mortarion, who was banished into the Warp in a massive explosion similar to that of a Vortex Weapon. While Mortarion has established that the change is irreversible that could be seen more as the words of Nurgle put in his mouth (God of Despair and all that), since according to the previous theory if he had actually believed this he would have been literally incapable of understanding the message as hope but rather he would have heard the ultimate insult. The Emperor claimed "Mortarion smelled like shit from day one. At this same time he was tasked with Horus to find and destroy the White Scars, who had been harrying the traitor lines since the events on Prospero. He still believed that humanity must guard against it -- push it back. Canon The two primarchs circled one another, prepared to finally engage in a deadly duel that would decide their fates. He was given command of the Death Guard Space Marine Legion on the arrival of the Emperor to his homeworld of Barbarus, but he turned to the service of Chaos during the Horus Heresy. His final battle had been building for years and he was not happy that someone else would share his glory. Mortarion's distrust of Typhon intensified as the Death Guard became afflicted with the Destroyer Hive. Jaghatai Khan remarked that besides himself, Mortarion was the only Primarch whose deeds and history were not well known to the greater Imperium. I have no idea why people think Mortarion was not loved. While Mortarion initially toyed with the warrior to humiliate him, after taking a wound he became enraged and struck the warrior down. To those unfortunates on the far side, in the region now named the Imperium Nihilus, the "Dark Imperium," it is something much worse -- the very gates of Hell. Descending upon the battlefields of the 41st Millennium on wings of tattered leather is Mortarion, the Daemon Primarch of Nurgle. The foremost Chaplain of the Word Bearers, Erebus, inducted Typhon into the secrets of the Seven Pillared Lodge, one of the Warrior Lodges that had begun to spread throughout the Space Marine Legions in the later days of the Great Crusade. Eventually the only warlord left was the Overlord himself. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. The Despoiler's agents repeated the same act on every world that harboured similar structures. As the creature died, and her quintessential matter was sucked back into the maw of the aether, she managed a mock salute, "Hail, Master of the Plague!" This article needs work on its citations.For help on citation see the citation guidelines. Mortarion was still human though, and he sought to know of those who dwelled below the layer of fog. Typhon had seen to it that the fleet's Navigators were killed to a man (claiming their loyalty was still to the Emperor), but reassured Mortarion that the Warp-gift he possessed would see them through their journey in the Empyrean safe enough. Soon, villages were becoming strongholds and the villagers were more effective defenders. Mortarion was kept by the High Overlord in a small tower positioned at the limit of even his superhuman tolerance to the toxins in the air, while Necare moved his own fortress to the highest peak of the world, beyond where even Mortarion could go. If he is planting a seed of hope in a servant of despair, it is for the purpose of getting him on to a path to salvation. Mortarion, Primarch of the Death Guard Legion before the Horus Heresy. Eventually the Khan found the answers he sought in the crystal caves deep underground, beneath the destroyed Prosperine capital city of Tizca. His ultimate vengeance was always denied to him because of the fog that prevented the humans from pushing home their attacks. In Mortarion's opinion it should have been cordoned off, put away, forgotten about forever by Mankind. Their weapons and armour were powered by the energies of Chaos and they became known as the Plague Marines, although they would still use the name of the Death Guard for themselves. [24], Following the withdrawal of Perturabo and the Iron Warriors from Terra Horus gave Mortarion the Lion's Gate Spaceport, which he turned into his own personal headquarters. Meanwhile, Mortarion was frequently critical of Magnus the Red over his use of Librarians and was one of the chief voices to ban Psykers among the Astartes Legions at the Council of Nikea. Alone and unaided, Draigo smashed his way through Mortarion's bodyguard of Plague Marines, struck the ancient Primarch to the ground and carved Geronitan's name on the Daemon Prince's diseased heart. [22c], Sometime after the formation of the Great Rift, Mortarion battled his brother Perturabo in the War of Rust and Ruin. Jaghatai proceeded to warn his brother that though his Legion might be free of the Warp's corruption for now, the change would come, for Mortarion had made his pacts with the masters of the Empyrean, and now they would come to collect their due. [9], Like Perturabo, Mortarion proved bitter over his perceived sidelining and under-appreciation by other Primarchs during the Great Crusade. The only consistent information regarding Mortarion and his homeworld come from a single source: the Stygian Scrolls of Lackland Thorn, a historian and polymath attached to the explorator fleet that discovered Barbarus. 1 . the emperor speaks to mortarion. But Mortarion admitted that he was guilty of patricide long before the seeds of treachery were sown in the Warmaster Horus' heart. At present, Mortarion . The Primarch was enraged at the creature's proclamation -- even his father the Emperor could not claim him. He Speaks. The entirety of the Death Guard Legion had come to the doomed world. Nurgle responded gleefully and took the XIV Legion and Mortarion for his own champions. By your hand shall justice be delivered, and doom shall stalk a thousand worlds.". Perhaps he knew the child was better than him and that one day he would come for the warlord, or perhaps he was afraid of the small child able to breath where no other of his kind could. Mortarion simultaneously experienced himself before the Emperor after his failure to kill his father, and finally snapped. It would be interesting if a traitor primarch managed an uno reserve card and betray their chaos god. Jaghatai, carried by the momentum of his final thrust, staggered though the empty space where his brother -- now his enemy -- had been. Mortarion still believed himself not a slave to Chaos, and sought to transform Ultramar into an extension of the Garden of Nurgle. If Magnus yet lived then everything could be salvaged. Worse still for the Primarch, the reactors of the Swordstorm had been set to overload and the Khan had since evacuated to the Battleship Lance of Heaven, which was leading the escape of the loyalist fleet into the Webway. Mortarion unsuccessfully sought to free Raheb Zurrieq, the first Death Guard to fall to the Destroyer Plague, from the torment of the unnatural disease. . Seeking to understand its horrors, two noble primarchs have come to Galaspar, summoning their brother to account for his actions. [1][6b], Only the top of the mountains denied him access. Where they were gaunt and pale skinned, the stranger had bronzed flesh and a perfect physique. On the highest peaks where the air was most poisonous lived the Overlord, who claimed Mortarion as his foster son. Typhus was especially active during the 13th Black Crusade, securing his own plague-ridden stronghold by the end of that conflict. He was before a resplendent Emperor for all the ages. Their weapons and armour were powered by the energies of Chaos and they became known as the Plague Marines, although they would still use the name Death Guard[7]. Mortarion is the Primarch of the Death Guard, and fourteenth son of the Emperor. This was Mortarion's great project. If anything it speak to how much Swallow dropped the ball with the Death Guard; The Pale King is a story we really needed to see. Gathering them before him, a grim and spectral figure robed and bearing the great black scythe that had once belonged to his nightmarish foster-father, it must have seemed to the Terran-born Dusk Raiders that an ancient, graven image of the Grim Reaper had come before them as their new master. The destruction of Cadia eliminated the mysterious geometric pylons that dotted the Fortress World's wind-swept outlands, and in doing so weakened the barrier between worlds, for these ancient megaliths were fashioned to keep power of the Warp from overwhelming the material dimension. Mortarion himself left his humanity far behind and was transformed into Nurgle's greatest mortal Champion: the Prince of Decay, the very image of death. In Julie Otsuka's novel, When the Emperor was Divine, a nameless Japanese-American family is uprooted, exported, and abandoned by their own government. In an ironic twist of fate, Mortarion has become exactly like the Overlords of Barbarus he vowed to kill ten thousand years ago. The XIV Legion's Astartes had been primarily Terran-born before Mortarion joined the Legion; after that time almost all of the Legion's Neophytes were drawn from the Feral World of Barbarus. [18] During the battle on Terra he oversaw the siege of the Western regions of the Palace, spreading plague and misery wherever he appeared. [1][6b], People say that Mortarion flattened the wooden door to the banquet room and he found the elders and a stranger who was their opposite in every way. He considered what he had found, and then bundled the child up and carried it from the carnage. He came to rest at the site of a huge battle fought across a vast plain. He recently returned to Imperial space for the first time in ten thousand standard years when he led the forces of the Plague God in the invasion of the Realm of Ultramar during the Plague Wars. Arkhan had expected the Omnissiah's dispassionate demeanour, but to witness it in so intimate a context was inspiring in the extreme. Previously, the walking corpses could be destroyed, but now doing so only released hordes of Nurglings that writhed impossibly out of the withered flesh of the fallen. He was still waiting, though not for very much longer. [22a] On Iax, the two Primarch's came to blows but Mortarion was able to emerge the victor thanks to his Daemonically-enhanced strength and resilience. Mortarion may be stronger than Guilliman but I doubt he'd want to fight him and several Custodes at the same time, especially when the Emperor's Sword has the ability to permanently end him. Mortarion declared he would turn Garro into an undead puppet to serve him for eternity, summoning a great host of flies to convert him into a Nurgle abomination. A Primarch! In the subsequent Battle of Catallus, the joint Death Guard-Emperor's Children fleet led by Mortarion cornered the White Scars fleet at the Dark Glass artifact. When the twenty primarchs of the Space Marine Legions were scattered across the galaxy in a mysterious accident, one came to rest on the planet Barbarus, a world wreathed in poisonous fog where the most advanced technology was that of steam power. Like thousands of other mortals the creature had encountered over the aeons, each was convinced that they alone could find a way to negotiate with the gods of the Warp with little to no consequence. But this was exactly why Mortarion had come to find Jaghatai. 'Father,' he said, and when he had said that word, it was the last time he . True to his earlier pledge, Horus let Mortarion's Death Guard be the first to land upon Terra. Until, that is, Mortarion himself joined into the fray.