Ahzek Ahriman

Remember kids, spend enough time in the library and you can shoot your own bolts of insanity lightning from your hand too!

Ahzek Ahriman (A.K.A. The Sorcerer of the Red Cyclops) is a powerful Chaos Space Marine of the Thousand Sons. He is noted for pissing off Magnus the Red to the point where Magnus kicked his ass out of the Thousand Sons after Ahriman simultaneously saved/damned his legion with the 'Rubric of Ahriman'. On the Tabletop, he is known for two things: costing as much as a Land Raider (the only special character in the CSM codex that costs more than him is Abaddon) and dropping a Touhou-esque level of mind-bullet dakka each round he's on the table. Although being a Thousand Son should make him a space Egyptian, his major quote in the fluff "the only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance" makes him Socrates in space, since Socrates said that in real life, also the man was quite a bro before the fall, while at the same time being capable to notice all the flaws of the Imperium even during the Great Crusade, as evidenced during the fall of Prospero he fought rather for the future of mankind than the Emperor, which ironically puts him on the same league of Roboute Guilliman.

Early Life

He was born among the wealthy tribes of the Achaemenid Empire, whose kings had allied with the Emperor during the Unification Wars. His name and birth region indicate that he is Iranian. He was then inducted to join the Astartes along with his twin brother Ohrmuzd (who later died of severe mutations, making it a dead giveaway to Ahriman and Ohrmuzd, two Iranian deities of Light and Dark—guess which one Ahriman is). He quickly rose through the ranks and became both Captain of the First Company and Chief Librarian of the Corvidae (the most powerful cult of the Thousand Sons).

Basically, he is an evil Persian Space Marine reeking of JUST AS PLANNED.

During the Heresy

Like all Astartes, Ahriman assisted his Primarch during the Great Crusade. With him serving as Magnus' second-in-command and advisor. Ahriman was present during the time when Horus became Warmaster. He was also present during Magnus' trial on Nikaea.

When the Space Wolves attacked Prospero (under false orders from Horus), Ahriman led the Thousand Sons Cults to battle. Defying Magnus' orders to accept their fates under the idea of redemption equals death. Despite this, the Sons were already near total annihilation until Magnus finally decided that enough was enough. Magnus battled Leman Russ, but Russ got super raggy with blind shot into Magi's eye of epicness and was about to slay Magnus. Magnus then swore allegiance to Tzeentch in a desperate move to save his legion, and so Tzeentch teleported Magnus, Ahriman, and the Sons to the Planet of the Sorcerers.

Rubric of Ahriman

Seeing as to how the Thousand Sons were quickly succumbing to the flesh-change since Tzeentch is the God of change and all, Ahriman attempted to permanently cure them of their mutations. Without Magnus' consent, he, along with a cabal of other sorcerers, cast the Rubric of Ahriman. On the up-side, all the psychics in the legion stopped mutating and became more powerful than they were. On the down-side, everyone else in the legion who wasn't a psyker was cursed to be turned into dust and be sealed in their armor for all eternity, turning them into soulless automatons who are unable to think for themselves. Needless to say, Ahriman went derp.

After Magnus learned of this, he flew into a nerd rage so great that even an Angry Marine would take pause to admire. Magnus was about to kill Ahriman but Tzeentch himself told him that everything was just as planned, and so the Cyclops kicked Ahriman's ass out of Planet of Sorcerers instead. Ahriman was initially remorseful and went incognito for a few centuries until his emo phase had ended / his former brothers tried to capture him so he could undor the rubric. With the help of some renegade marines, Ahriman came out on top, got rid of his rivals, donned the bitchingly horned helemt he wears to this day, and began his "War against Fate".

Current Status

The man himself!

He is constantly trying to gain entrance into an Eldar library. Not just any library, where he can nerd out like most other geeks, but the mystical Black Library where he can nerd out mystically and become a new major chaos god (which would thus tear reality yet another great big asshole like the eye of terror). And he is constantly failing at that task because villains can't win. To be fair, it is hidden in the ass end of the Webway. It's also protected by the Harlequins, who are really good at getting their shit done, and the Eldar Laughing God, who still has the full measure of his god-like power, also a master of just as planned (to the point that he can play this dreadfully complicated game on a fairly equal level with The Deceiver, Tzeentch, and the Emperor), and is capable of challenging Slaanesh for the souls for the Harlequin Solitaires and winning.

In spite of this, he is one of the most awesomely powerful psykers in the galaxy. His miniature can psychic power spam like no one else can, as he is able to throw seven powers per turn, three of which are the same witchfire, which means that he can kill pretty much anything dead with just a mean look. Nerd Rage abounds as to whether the Doom of Malan'tai, Tigurius, Eldrad, Ahriman, or Mephiston is the most powerful psyker alive and not balls to the wall insane or a daemon.

Pretty much answered: at least in terms of straight psychic power, Eldrad's got powerful anti-psyker and perils bypassing stuff that Ahriman doesn't, though Ahriman can manifest more psychic powers per turn with enough allied sorcerers around to rob them of their charges, and they are now both boosted to Mastery Level 4 in the 6th ed codices, so a psychic duel between them can go either way. Other mortal contenders though are not even near the god-like power level of those two.

And he may well still be a loyalist. Or at least, he may still think he is a loyalist… wait a second…

Let us clarify this point, the main reason he has to enter the Black Library is the hope that this may allow him to achieve enough power to rebuild Prospero (among other things), which by all means and purposes was supposed to be the first city populated by psionically attuned humans without having to go through all the grimdark soul-bidding process which is common in the current Imperium, want to know how cool that place was? A medic of Prospero could heal cancer, with their mind powers, and that was average procedure. So yeah, no need for Emprah-miracles. Too bad Ahriman is currently not above using torture, genocide and daemonology to get the work done (then again, is not like the Imperium doesn't do the same thing here and there).

By the way he has his own series of novels and stories along with being one of the main characters of A Thousand Sons novel, and is the main antagonist in Atlas Infernal, you can compare how crazy he has gone from reading first the Horus Heresy book and then Atlas Infernal, grimdark indeed.

Unrelated to everything above, he's named after Ahriman from Zoroastrianism.

Gallery

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  Mess with him and you'll be shitting lightning bolts… as cool as that sounds, you wont like it.

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  During the Horus Heresy

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  Disco Ahriman