Kranios the Destroyer

Kranios
Title/Honours	The Destroyer
Discovered (world)	Satares
Discovered (period)	c.811.M30
Legion	Twenty-ninth
Heraldry/Sigil
Role	Traitor

This article or section has been selected for Exterminatus by the Ordo Editant. The Emperor Corrects.

Kranios was a blade forged for one purpose, to destroy his enemies without mercy or hesitation. He had no nobler virtues or interests beyond this singular pursuit. If it hadn't been the Heresy that turned him against our Father, then the horror of peace and obsolescence when the Great Crusade was finished would have surely pushed him to betray the Imperium. One must never create a weapon which cannot be turned off when it's purpose is fulfilled.

(Excerpt from Memoirs of Battle, by Arelex Orannis)

Appearance

Kranios had a very harsh appearance, and stood at the taller end of the spectrum of his brothers while still retaining the bulk others had lost. The Primarch's bronze skin was covered in the various scars he had received throughout his life, most noticeably the one he received from his fall down the mountain as a child, which had left a massive mark that ran along the side of his head. The scars were only made worse by a harsh looking face that made even his smiles and laughs appear mean spirited, though that may have been because they often were. Kranios often kept his head shaved, and grew a short black beard over his face.

He remained in his armor at almost all times, content to know that he was created for destruction and war. He seemed to have little intention or interest in trying to be anyone who was not concerned with annihilating the enemies of the Imperium. He is said to have found it amusing that some of his brothers have tried to play the man or some form of beast and not the war machines they were designed to be.

He wielded a massive two handed Thunder Hammer, made of a single slab of the hard black metal taken form the depths of his home world. It was originally a relic handed down among the tribe chieftains of the mountain folk, a symbol of strength and martial prowess. It's dark surface is almost entirely featureless, except for the mechanism added by the Tech Priests to turn it into a true Thunder Hammer, and the bronze rams head of his legion plated onto the weapon's side.

Youth

Kranios' homeworld, Satares, was a volatile and dangerous planet save for precious few sub continents where the tectonic plates held still. The constant earthquakes and raging storms gave birth to countless mountains and bottomless chasms as far as any eye could see, and from the heavens rained down a near constant barrage of asteroids that could devastate villages or entire mountain ranges in the blink of an eye, save for one swath of land. Satares was odd in that it's moon orbited at the same rate that the planet rotated, so there was one single solitary patch where the moon blocked all asteroids heading for the planet and was rumored to almost never suffer from the terrible earthquakes and eruptions that plagued the rest of the world, creating a holy land to Satares' inhabitants where life was not only bearable but enjoyable.

The gestation pod careened through a sky over one of Satares' greatest capitals and crashed into a neighboring mountain ridge. The young primarch crawled from his carriage, dazed and confused high in the mountains, before slipping and falling down the mountain side, against jagged rocks and steep inclines into the camp of a tribe of mountain people, men and women who were descendants of those who had been cast out of the cities of the Holy Land in ages past. The infant was bruised and bloody and a gash was so deep in his head that his brain could be seen beating, but though his rescuers were a harsh people and expected him to die, any child who fell from the sky alive was a good omen to them, half dead or otherwise.

Kranios grew quickly. He learned all there was to be as a man of the mountains. The harsh environment fostered him into a cold warrior and his empathy for life was shattered as so many he grew to knew and even care for were crushed under the mountain's tremors. For years he heard of the injustice of how his people had been driven out of their land after years of loyalty to a great King who was murdered and replaced by scheming nobles to create a republic where corruption and degeneracy ran rampant, but he also heard of something else. The King's great horn, a grand and ancient relic was said to be somewhere hidden in the mountains, and when it was found, the wielder would be the one who used it's power to bring the King's loyal servants back into their rightful place in the Holy Lands as the new ruler of the world.

The Coming of The Emperor

For years Kranios searched, both on his own and with fellow members of the tribes looking for the King's horn. countless near deaths, injuries, cold and hungry nights would someday finally prevail. Deep deep in one of the frozen mountains he found it. The King's Horn. But it was not of the gaudy gold and silver bands and intricate design he thought it would be. It was made of the grey horn of one of Satares' monstrous rams and was coated in solid black iron drawn from the planet's depths, and etched with a thousands of minuscule of runes of an unknown language that could barely be seen on the black monstrosity. Kranios had found what the people of the mountain had searched centuries for and knew they would come marching droves to see their new king march on the usurpers.

Even with the Horn and the great army it provided Kranios' enemies resisted in a grueling war of attrition and hatred. The people of Satares described it as 30 years of excruciating terror and atrocity as the mountain people slaughtered, destroyed, and ruined at the cost of hundreds of their own people, while being led by a true giant who seemed hell bent on destroying their civilization. Not one city yielded willingly to Kranios, knowing that submission to him meant death at best and a life of slavery and suffering at worst. This was fine with Kranios, he enjoyed every hard fought battle as his enemies lashed out like beasts as their cities crumbled around them.

The Emperor arrived on Satares, to find it's few remaining Cities belching out black smoke and deadly war machines, as men who could have been kings in their past lives rotted in chains pushing great wheels, some which turned great gears or factory lines or did nothing at all as a cruel joke. Sitting on the throne found in the greatest of these glorified war factories, in a massive palace cut of black stone and mortared with bodies of fallen slaves was Kranios. Despite the lack of anything beautiful in his world, the Emperor could not deny that the conquests and the appearance of this man proved him to be one of his lost sons. The Emperor offered him a place in his great crusade, and Kranios, seeing the magnificence of the great arms and armor the Emperor and his men wielded, accepted. Once again Satares went to war.

The Great Crusade

Kranios and his legion joined the crusade with a vengeance. Being the fourth Primarch found, leading a massive legion of 180,000 Astartes, bolstered by men from his homeworld of Satares, and backed by his factories equipped with the STCs of the Imperium, Kranios felt truly invincible. The Primarch seemed to miss the point of the Crusade, focusing on the war and not the union of mankind, but as worlds rich with plunder, minerals, and promises of rich agriculture fell into the Imperium's possession the Emperor turned a blind eye to the lack of a population that the Horns of Ruin left behind.

Kranios obsession with his war meant he only met a few of his brothers in passing, when he first joined the crusade and during later summons by his father. Even those he was quick to dismiss himself from. Though this made him distant the Primarch had perhaps one or two brother he had fought with that he could enjoy or at least tolerate the presence of.

Kranios came to blows with the Primarch of the Eternal Zealots, Aubrey. His brother's later arrival to the crusade and the rumors of his dealings with xenos rather then destroying them had filled Kranios with nothing but contempt for the man. Kranios had insulted Aubrey after the Zealot's heart filled speech at the council of Nikaea and the two would have certainly come to blows had it not been for the Emperor's presence and a brother's intervention. They met again later, only for Kranios to provoke Aubrey to anger once more and receive a devastating punch to the jaw during a bout of laughter. Kranios would awake an hour later, alone and furious over the humiliation his brother had given him.

The Heresy

The Horns of Ruin were quick to fall to the powers of Chaos. Kranios did not find the idea of standing idly by once the Great Crusade had been finished to be as near as tempting as the never ending war that Hektor's new Gods had promised, and his Astartes were all to eager to follow behind him. After taking part in the Massacre on Istvaan V, the Siege of Terra, Hektor's subsequent death and the Emperors internment on the Golden Throne, Kranios and his Legion made there way to the Eye of Terror, reducing every world that crossed their path along the way to ash.

Post-Heresy

Kranios now resides on his own daemon world. Sometime during his Legions slaughtering fest towards the Eye of Terror, he had somehow gained the means and the favor required to not only ascend to daemonhood but he also managed to provoke the collapse of Satares in the material world, bringing it through into the Immaterium.

Satares' jagged landscape is now divided into six separate domains, four of which are each devoted to a Chaos God. Each domain hosts one city, and each city is dominated by an overlooking spire occupied by those who had the luck of gaining Kranios' favor in life.

The worlds "Capital" is Kranios' own city where he resides. Kranios regularly holds an event where each city presents a gift to their Overlord. Whichever city brings the most pleasing gift, is given leave to slaughter the losing gods' followers as tribute in order to bring glory to the winning city's patron. During this time of bloodshed the only safe havens that bring a chance of survival to the losing followers are the Gods' devoted cities.

The city of Khorne is dominated by the Pillar of Blood. It is ruled over by the Horns of Ruin's first captain, Muraxes, who showed Kranios all the ways a man makes war and how to destroy ones enemies. It constantly belches out war machines and daemonic weapons for Kranios' champions

The city of Tzeencth is watched over by the Tower of Change. It is resided by powerful Psyker, who is said to be the one who showed Kranios how to obtain his princedom. The city is beset by dark whispers at all hours, and is constantly trying to find daemonic secrets to bring to Kranios

The city of Slaanesh is graced by the Spire of Pleasure. It is blessed with the presence of a Daemonette, who is rumored to have been spawned from the soul of same young woman who found Kranios and raised him as a child. The city births a menagerie of daemonic brides and unspeakable pleasures.

The city of Nurgle is plagued by the Ziggurat of Plagues. It is home to the disease ridden medicine man who cared for Kranios' wounds throughout his battles on Satares. The city is devoted to crafting spells and finding ways for Satares inhabitants to writhe their way into the Matterium.