Lucius

The sick bastard in all his sick glory.

"Hey, BRAH! Got a nice spirit stone there. Can I put it in my mouth and cover it in SALIVA?!"

– Lucius, being a creepy deviant as always

"It gives me no pleasure to do this. You are nothing to me, simply a rabid dog that needs to be put down."

– The one who doesn't need floors pointing out to Lucius that rabies is still an issue in the far future

"Good, I can feel your anger. I am defenseless. Take your weapon. Strike me down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!"

– Emperor Palpatine, Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi

Lucius the Eternal is the sickest fuck in the Emperor's Children, an entire Legion of sick fucks who worship the very god of sick fuckery. That's really saying something. He's also one of the biggest pieces of shit in the whole damn galaxy, up there with Erebus in terms of self-centered, ruining everything bullcrap.

Back during the Great Crusade, Lucius was Captain of the 13th Company, where he was the best swordsman in the legion. Meaning, in an entire army of perfectionists, no one was better at sword fighting than Lucius. He was also extremely arrogant, more concerned about his own glory than the Legion's. His arrogance stemmed from his youth on Chemos. Born after Fulgrim's departure, he was educated amongst the nobility and became the youngest swordsmaster the planet had ever seen, regularly beating boys much older than him (and occasionally even his teachers) in duels. Being the very best didn't really help with his personality, and he almost got killed when he ran through one of his opponents for daring wounding him, making a riot break out between his admirers and detractors. Luckily for him (and unluckily for the rest of the galaxy) an Emperor's Children Astartes saw the skilled young swordsman and abducted him in the stampede, deciding that such skill with the sword should not go to waste. This, along with him surviving the implantation process and becoming a full Astartes himself, really didn't help with his feeling of superiority either.

During the campaign on Murder, Lucius got himself into trouble with his superior Eidolon for using a xenos claw as a weapon, and then came under fire from Tarik Torgaddon for being a kiss-ass to any senior Emperor's Children marine and obnoxious to anyone else. He later showed off his prowess to the Luna Wolves in the practice cages, defeating Erebus. However, Garviel Loken found a flaw in Lucius' method — his reliance on technique — and beat him with a punch to the face.

During the Battle of Isstvan III, Lucius initially sided with the Loyalists against the Chaos Space Marines. But when command of the loyalist Emperor's Children was taken by Saul Tarvitz, Lucius got jealous (failing to note that every loyalist on the planet would eventually die, and who got the most credit didn't matter — even Tarvitz doesn't get much recognition in the Imperium). It's slightly skimmed over, but apparently Lucius got corrupted by the Slaaneshi cultists' music in the battle on Isstvan III, as he started to become obsessed with the "song of death". Eventually he betrayed their stronghold in exchange for joining the Traitors, tricking Solomon Demeter into killing loyalist Space Marines before murdering him — proving that the age old adage "It is better to die for the Emperor than live for yourself" may have some truth to it. And of course, Lucius got off a little bit on Demeter's anguish before putting the poor guy out of his misery. He then proceeded to toy with Tarvitz after explaining his reasons: "I'm better than you". However, Tarvitz took a leaf out of Loken's book, jumped on Lucius and deployed a tactical smackdown. Lucius then got pumped full of bolter shrapnel, but escaped to get some Fabulous Bill augmentations.

During the rest of the Heresy, Lucius put his skills to good use murderizing loyalists (and organizing an exorcism/BDSM session for Fulgrim). He continued being an arrogant supremely skilled bastard, up until he met Nykona "I don't use the floor" Sharrowkyn, a Raven Guard badass who proceeded to make Lucius his bitch on two separate occasions before stabbing him through both hearts and killing him.

Except the last part didn't quite stick, because he mysteriously got up again after being very definitely dead. Not even Fabius knows how he pulled this off, and Lucius was sensible enough not to stick around long enough for Fabius to find out how it worked by vivisection. He somehow ended up wandering around on Sortiarius, separated from the rest of his legion. After dueling with the Thousand Sons blademaster Sanakht, Lucius accompanied Ahriman and his cabal in their quest to find the shards of the Crimson King. Along the way, he proved to be an effective manipulator, tempting several of the Thousand Sons into doing what Lucius's demonic allies wanted. He also got his scarred face to be temporary fixed to look more like Fulgrim's, before getting it scarred again by fighting inside the Maze of Tzeentch.

The Iron Hands found a way to make his Come Back From The Death Ability useless. Just throw him away like the piece of trash that he is.

But it's (ironically) after the Horus Heresy where things start to get creepy. During one of the random gladiatorial games the Emperor's Children partook in, Lucius was struck down. The experience was so enjoyable that it caught Slaanesh's notice. Not wanting to lose so devoted a servant, Lucius was resurrected in his killer's own body. After that, anyone who struck down Lucius and felt any satisfaction from the act would find themselves possessed by Lucius, who thus became known as Lucius the Eternal. To all the MANLY FOLLOWERS of Khorne, this makes Lucius a total failure compared to Kharn, as Kharn has been killing stuff for just as long as Lucius without dying once (until World Eaters claimed his "lifeless corpse" from the steps in front of the Infinity Gate... still, that's only one death to Lucius' fucktons). To all the FOOLISH IMPERIAL SCUM, this is the most terrifying thing ever: they know they'll never get him with an Exterminatus or orbital bombardment because of plot, and they know that their greatest champions (who have their own plot armor) can't beat him either. He may have in fact aided the Imperium by getting killed by more skilled Chaos Champions and Xenos.

(Though that ability is not foolproof. It certainly wouldn't work against certain people like Kharn, Typhus, Ahriman, Abaddon or any of the Primarchs or God-Emperor or possibly any sufficiently powerful psyker assuming they didn't already explode into daemons. In some of these instances, Slaanesh would bring him back and get pissed at the guy whose soul cannot be possessed, in others they can just nope him out of existence metaphysically.)

The fans have fun speculating on easy and anticlimactic ways to keep him from reviving, like having him die from some unlucky artillery shell from some bored as fuck Guardsmen in Basilisks shell him to death without ever realizing what they did, or trapped by mindless Tyranids or Necrons. Despite absolutely zero chance of this ever happening (because he's a named character in 40k, how lame would it be to die and get written out of the lore in such a weak fashion?) the writers have been taking steps to tell us "not so fast!" regardless. The new Chyaos codex has him reviving after a Necron duelist wasted him and took some cold pride in it, so nuts to that, apparently! "Lucius: Pride and Fall" has him resurrecting as a munitorum factory worker who built the landmine that Lucius tripped on. The fans are now asking what if the person who kills him and enjoys it commits suicide before the transformation occurs. Or: take him alive (easier said then done admittedly, but given Lucius' record at fisticuffs a few Terminators could probably subdue him easily), cut his limbs off, lock him in a metal box, put that box inside another box, then mail the box to yourself, and when it arrives? SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER Build a heavily armed fortress on top full of stormtroopers who think they're just there to support a crusade and BAM, problem potentially solved. Or alternatively, freeze him with a stasis field while activating a tesseract labyrinth to keep him out of the scene. Also the writers claim his plot armor ability is not foolproof, as shown by making Lucius cautious enough to run away if he really is close to dying for real. It's also implied that if he died in the Webway, he'd croak forever; bad news for him because the 8th edition Dark Eldar codex reveals that gladiatrix extraordinare Lelith Hesperax wants to capture him and take him back to Commorragh for a duel and she knows about his resurrection/possession ability but thinks she has a way around it - remove his soul-carrying armor.

But let's face it, probably the easiest, most permanent way of dealing with this asshole is to just inter his lunatic ass inside of a Helbrute and call it a day.

In between Black Crusades, Lucius is said to wander that Eye of Terror, supposedly looking for either the location of Fulgrim's pleasure world, or to find a means to weaponize his penis. If things had gone very differently, he could probably get some help with that from the Iron Hands. At one point he got himself captured by Dark Eldars as part of a contrived bargain they had made with Fabius Bile. He was kept as the main event by a powerful Archon (She controlled a minor Webway realm to herself) but he kept winning and everyone got bored. Bile hooked up him with the drug rack as a means of keeping him alive long enough to pillage as much information as possible. The archon decided that he wasn’t worth the effort of keeping around and ditched him from the top billing. It was also revealed (if by implication) that if Lucius od’d on his new toys, then Bile - as their proud maker - would get turned into him. Jury’s out on how that would work with the the whole clone body thing that Fabius has going on.

By the time of the 13th Black Crusade, the Emperors Children Legion (implied to be bigger today than during the Heresy) has fully mobilized to attack the Imperium. Lucius and his warband participated at Extremis Six alongside his Primarch Fulgrim

On the Tabletop

Lucius gets a standard Chaos Lord statline, plus WS7 and I6. He clocks in at 165 points, and is equipped with a power sword, a doom siren, and a 3+/5++. He has two unique abilities: his Lash of Torment reduces the attacks of all enemies in base contact by one and gives all his close combat attacks Shred, and his Armour of Shrieking Souls means that each time he passes an armor or invuln save, the model or unit that caused the wound takes a S4 AP2 hit. He also has the Duellist's Pride rule, which makes his attacks characteristics equal to his opponent's weapon skill in a challenge.

In a codex full of one-trick ponies, Lucy is the ultimate one, being quite good at killing 3+ or worse characters but being otherwise almost totally useless. Unlike Kharn, who you can point at basically anything, Lucius struggles with 2+ save characters. The bane of his existence, though is S8 weaponry, as he lacks Eternal Warrior and will likely get splatted by the first Thunder Hammer/Artificer armor captain he challenges. His low number of attacks (3) and his lack of a second close combat weapon mean that he struggles outside of challenges, too. He does bring a Doom Siren along, meaning double-Siren drive-by fun if you put him in a Rhino with Noise Marines.

8th Edition

8th ed. Lucius got buffed hard, getting a price cut, 5 attacks instead of 3 base and a 2-damage power sword. The Lash of Torment is now an S4 AP-1 D2 Assault 2 weapon that can be fired both into and out of combat, essentially giving him 7 attacks base before additional rules like Death to the False Emperor kick in. Duelist's Pride has changed since challenges are gone. Now, if he directs all his attacks at a single enemy character he gets +2 attacks. Sadly that Doom Siren of his is now totally lame. Ah well. Like every damn character in 8th ed he also gives a 6" bubble of rerolling 1s on to-hit rolls to units with his subfaction keyword, EMPEROR'S CHILDREN. All this for a mere 11 points over a naked Chaos Lord, not bad.

• Alternate opinion: Lucius' swordsmanship is supposed to be "Perfect", but he hits on a 2+ just like every other melee character. Compare him to the Emperor's Champion for instance. Would you rather have +2 attacks or re-roll to hit any miss AND +3 strength vs characters? The Black Sword is just better than the "Blade of the Laer" which slew the Primach Ferrus, because reasons at the time it was possessed by a Keeper of Secrets. Then you have Lucius mediocre saves 3+/5++. They could have at least give him a 4+ in combat; he's Slaanesh's champion after all. The prominent rack of Combat Drugs on his back does nothing. Finally, his character aura is just bland. Look at the auras the Imperial special characters grant. Granting +1S to sonic weapons, FNP within 6" would have been more characterful. While he isn't terrible, the best thing you can say about Lucius is that he's cheaper, and that's really a shame. Maybe when/if he gets a plastic model they'll do something interesting with him.

Other Lucius'

Apparently, the name is widespread in the 40k, and there are a lot of other dudes, places and things named Lucius, amongst which:

• Lucius the Pretendent – another Slaaneshi Chaos Lord, who hilariously cosplayed Lucius the Eternal, by challenging and slaughtering Imperial champions on Medusa V. Accidentally rolled two sixes and ascended to daemonhood.
• Forge World Lucius – one of the top-grade forge worlds, rivaling Mars itself with the quantity and variety of things it produces. Has its own exclusive patterns of Warhound and Reaver titans, as well as STCs of Macharius Heavy Tanks and Cyclops demolition tanks.
• Lucius Drop Pod – big-ass drop pod specifically designed for deploying dreads.