Editing Nobledark Imperium Primarchs (section)

== Magnus the Red ==

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">''''' The Arch-Psyker: '''''

The origins of Magnus the Red can be traced back to the previous Despot of Ursh, a remarkably unfriendly fellow by the name of Ganzorig the Great. Indeed his deeds were great, and he conquered huge swathes of the Afrique League to add to the already great Empire his uncle left him. One of the contributing factors in his victories was his use of enslaved and potent psykers. These poor creatures — witch-kin as they were — were not highly valued by the Despot as people, despite him being a follower of the dark gods.

One of his most prized possessions was a witch by the name of Ada, who was said to be able to summon daemons and direct them to her bidding, if not bind them as more contemporaneous psykers might be wont to do. In her youth, before he had discovered quite how valuable she was, the Despot had whored her out to a navigator for imported weapons from far off worlds beyond Sol. That she had a child that she loved dearly was good news for Ganzorig, as it gave him a means by which he could control her.

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Time passed, wars were waged, new lands were conquered, and things continued to get worse on Old Earth. Much as they always had done.

In time, Ada's son — named Magnus — grew into a man. Like his father he was uncommonly tall, and it was soon evident that like his mother he was uncommonly powerful. As such, he was press-ganged into the psychic warfare and assault efforts of the Regime. Magnus' greatest aptitudes were in wards and defensive measures, and by age fifteen could stop artillery fire with the powers of his will alone — and had done so on the front lines. By age twenty he could throw up a shield wall that was harder than the finest steel, covering almost a mile in either direction.

Where Magnus had always been Ganzorig's leash to ensure Ada's obedience, so too had Magnus been kept obedient by the promise of his mother's continuing life. Ada died on the front lines in Magnus' 35th year, fighting against the Pan-Pacific Empire and the monsters created by its mad sciences. Magnus was on his own front lines half a continent away — on the borders of Achaemenidia — when she died, but he felt her loss suddenly and keenly. Magnus seemed to vanish after her death, and the border was overrun by the next morning. A few month after Magnus' disappearance Ganzorig the Great was found to have died in his sleep — charred and immolated, with a rictus of agony frozen on his face.

Little is known of Magnus' movements in the subsequent years and the Urshii War of Succession that followed. It is suspected that he fled to the cursed ground of the Himalayzia Mountains — a place only whispered in dark legends, the one place nobody was strong or mad enough to conquer and, from the fall of the Dark Age Empire to the arrival of the Warlord, remained inviolate. It remains unknown what exactly was protecting those highest peaks, but 

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and never again, they promised on that hallowed ground, and so they faded in midnight clad.

Magnus emerged from that strange land some time in his sixties, although how much had actually passed time in that place was anyone's guess. Due to his inhuman heritage Magnus looked still of his early middle years — but for his one remaining eye, which held reflected horrors enough to last lifetimes. Once pale and soft like his father's, his skin was now hardened by years of exposure to the energies of the Warp, becoming something approximating leather, and was adorned from head to foot in red wards, runes, and holy script in some unknown letters tattooed, branded, and scarred across every inch of flesh — save for the ragged bite mark that took up one side of his face.

By this time the Warlord's armies were moving in earnest with expert precision across a dozen fronts, both military and diplomatic.

At first, the tall man wandered in places he thought beyond the reach of any king, man, or beast. But as the Warlord progressed his psychic powers, his presence grew until Magnus felt them eclipse his own. He traveled to the very furthest reaches of Sibar and buried his talents, that he might not shine out from afar. But the Warlord could feel him and he knew it. Rather than wait to be hunted down like a wild beast or chained up like the days of his youth, Magnus set out for the burning light.

At the time the Warlord was busy in the Lands of Skand, where the Nordyc people dwelt. The Warlord was trying to unify them into a cohesive nation that could be negotiated with and absorbed into the Imperium. Some tribes would remain staunchly independent, and would raid, pirate, and maraud across the landscape — and they would be crushed for it — but the Warlord's hoped to minimize the number of uncooperative tribes.

It was to this that Magnus — draped in animal skins, weathered and wild-looking — strode into the great wood-and-thatch hall, himself almost as tall as the doorway. The great hall fell silent for a moment, taking in the tall stranger, before the babbling of conversations returned. He scanned the scene before him through the hazy smoky air, examining the rows of men and women seated around the tables and staying warm by the great fire pit. There he found the Warlord.

He was seated some way down the bench, tearing into a slab of mutton whilst a man in dusty grey robes negotiated with the king in a jovial manner. To Magnus' great surprise the Warlord had waved him over, offered him a seat on the bench next to him, and poured him a drink; it had not occurred to Magnus that the Warlord meant him no harm, for it had always been his assumption that powerful men fought and that was the way of things.

In the years that followed the Warlord offered Magnus a place at his side; not for his battlefield prowess, although that was indeed formidable, but for the forbidden and ancient lore he had 

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although it troubled him greatly.

Magnus did eventually walk the battlefield once more, but this time at the head of a small army of his own making; a band of psykers like himself, some liberated slaves of Ursh or other nations and some born free in the Imperium, who would become the Legion of the Thousand Sons. For the first time since the death of his mother Magnus felt at home. They accrued much fame and fortune in the Wars of Unification — primarily against the stain on the map that was Ursh. Though the Warlord trusted Magnus, he put upon him the one condition that he have no more dealings from things beyond conventional time and space.

Being not fully human and witch-kin besides, steeped as he was in forbidden magics and lore, the other commanders were unsure of Magnus; Mortarion and Russ in particular, untrusting as they were of Warp magicks and psykery, both had a distinct dislike of him and his methods. For all that, Magnus eventually attained the rank of Primarch and became Magnus the Red. Unlike most of his fellow Primarchs, Magnus could not receive any augmentations due to his anomalous genetic makeup.

As the Unification slid gently into the Great Crusade, the Thousand Sons held themselves well and as high as any other — despite being the smallest of the Legions in the Imperial Army.

With the coming of the War of the Beast, Magnus' armies found themselves outmatched; The Beast had psykers of his own, and the Chaos Eldar were experienced in tormenting his people — the Crones seemed to take special delight in making Magnus' psykers die screaming in agony. But they fought on still, unyielding and unrelenting.

It was during The Beast's assault on Old Earth that Magnus finally broke his word to the now Steward. Using the precious knowledge his mother had taught him all those centuries ago, Magnus called forth the old spirits of Earth, working up the Warp into a howling gale and dashing The Beast's fleets upon impossible shores — one might almost pity them for where they now were. It was a gamble that was not wholly won, for some Imperial ships were also lost in the gale, their crews damned and lost forever. He was severely berated by the Warlord for this and they almost came to blows in the ensuing arguments. Even so, Magnus was nevertheless still present on Old Earth in those final days of the war, confounding the sorcerers of Chaos and slaying their daemons. Eventually the Steward and Magnus did reconcile their differences, though that took many, many years.


It is said that the Grey Knights were founded and trained by ancient veterans of the Thousand Sons, though — as with all things to do with the history of the Order — the truth will never be known.


Magnus was one of the three primarchs that lived to see the Steward crowned Emperor, although only barely. He was as human as the day he was born, however much that was, and longevity treatments can only take a human so far. His ashes were scattered to the winds on the tallest Himalayzian mountain, carried there by the Emperor himself.

Even well into the Dark Millennium, the Emperor will not allow any discussions of what he found in those mountains.

Was it wondrous? Terrible? Both? None may ever know now. Whatever was there was gone by the time Earth was all but unified. Yet a few clues remain; a few abandoned villages, some empty temples, a few overgrown fields. Whatever was there looked and acted enough like people to fool people into thinking they too were people, more or less. 

But no signs of violence. Whatever was there also left of its own accord.

What it is and why anything can never be known will forever remain a mystery, though the Warlord found neither joy nor sorrow in its departure.

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