Iskandar Khayon

Khayon in the cobalt blue of the Thousand Sons.

"You have lost so much lore that I can barely comprehend where your ignorance ends and your innocence begins."

– Iskandar Khayon, on the Inquisition

Iskandar Khayon is the Lord Vigilator of the Black Legion and one of the founding members. Formerly a Sorcerer of the Thousand Sons, who know him as Khayon the Black due to his change of allegiance and perceived betrayal of his brothers, he is a member of the Ezekarion (Abaddon's inner circle). The Black Legion calls him the Kingbreaker, as he apparently he kicked Magnus' lazy ass to make him comply with Abaddon's plans. He has a multitude of other names and titles, most of which (he claims) are falsely attributed to him.

He's the narrator and main character of the novel Talon of Horus.

Pre-Heresy

A Prospero native, Khayon experienced tragedy at an early age when his sister Itzara was attacked by a nasty psychic brain parasite which destroyed much of her brain tissue. After it became clear that she would never function again, he decided (in an attempt to keep some of her still alive) to hand her over to the Adeptus Mechanicus, who were trying to create an advanced machine-spirit. She survived the procedure, but due to the amount of secondary brains and mechanical attachments that were grafted onto her, lost all of her sense of individuality, becoming the Anamnesis, one of the most advanced machine-spirits ever created. She was installed in the Thousand Sons cruiser Tlaloc.

Khayon served honorably in the Great Crusade. Unlike a lot of major Chaos characters, he wasn't really a notable in his legion, being a competent sorcerer and commander but otherwise just another run-of-the-mill legionary. He managed to escape the Burning of Prospero, killing a Space Wolf champion by literally dismantling him at the molecular level and taking his axe, Saern. He was not, however, one of the Thousand Sons that Magnus took with him to the Planet of Sorcerers, and remained in the wreckage of Prospero until he was rescued by Lheorvine Ukris, a World Eaters captain. The two became allies and (occasional) friends. Luckily he didn't meet the other World Eaters force that Khârn led to Prospero, which ended up hunting down some returned Thousand Sons and killing all but one.

He was at the Siege of Terra, where he acquired a serious grudge against the Emperor's Children for leaving their positions during the attack on the Imperial Palace and murderfucking Terran civilians instead.

Post-Heresy

He eventually made his way to Sortiarius when Ahriman was in the process of enacting the Rubric, but (obviously) failed to stop him. He's understandably still cross about this, as the Rubric turned his oldest friend into an automaton. After the disaster, he fled in the Tlaloc along with a few allies and some Rubricae, becoming the Kha'Sherhan warband. Over the next few centuries, he roamed the Eye of Terror, working for various factions and acquiring an awesome collection of old Mechanicus battle robots. Because of the tiny size of his warband, he used these robots to prevent boarders from taking the Tlaloc. It was during this time as well that he began binding daemons, using a deck of tarot cards to bind and summon them when necessary. It is unrecorded whether he ever traded with other sorcerers for rare cards or if he fought and defeated his opponents by challenging them to a children's card game, complete with his cards manipulating reality to represent themselves. The most potent of these was the Ragged Knight, an ancient Bloodthirster born from the wanton bloodshed of the Massacre at Béziers.

When the former Justaerin Falkus Kibre sent out a call for aid with finding the Vengeful Spirit, Khayon responded (secretly hoping that if he found the vessel, he could install the Anamnesis as its machine-spirit and claim it as his own). He, Kibre, and Lheorvine eventually found the vessel (and Abaddon) deep in the Eye of Terror. The news that Fabius Bile was trying to clone Horus finally got Abaddon off his ass. The Vengeful Spirit, with the Anamnesis as its machine-spirit, headed for Harmony, where Khayon psychically threw the now-abandoned Tlaloc at the planet, destroying the main Emperor's Children stronghold. During the confrontation with Bile aboard the latter's cruiser, he fought the clone-Horus alongside the rest of Abaddon's forces.

His exploits after the founding of the Black Legion aren't known exactly, and the line between falsehoods and facts is somewhat blurry (as Khayon himself notes.) He was present during the Seventh Black Crusade, where the Black Legion destroyed most of the Blood Angels. Immediately after the founding, he became Abaddon's go-to assassin. When he was sent after Thagus Daravek, however, he ran into difficulties, leading to a feud with the Lord of Hosts. It turned out that Daravek had captured the remains of Khayon's familiar (which had part of his soul bound through it) and used it to subvert Khayon whenever they were close.

As of the Thirteenth Black Crusade, he managed to infiltrate Imperial space and land on Terra, where he turned himself in to the Inquisition on Abaddon's orders in order to personally tell the Emperor that the Imperium cannot win the war that is coming. Last mention at time of writing has him as a tortured prisoner of the Inquisition on terra in 'Watchers of the Throne'.

The Breakdown

Reasons why Iskandar is cool: 1. Despite having the power and knowledge to become a Warlord in his own right, he stays truly loyal to his lord Abaddon because of his deep belief in the righteousness of The Long War. Where most Chaotic underlings scheme and jockey for dominance, Iskandar still believes in justice, honor, and loyalty, as do many within the Black Legion. 2. He's "evil" by most human reckoning, but his perspectives and morals are consistant enough that he avoids the Cartoon Villain Syndrome that plagues so many depictions of Chaos Astartes. Yeah, he'll throw humans to a torturous death, but he's watched his entire world and almost every mortal on it die in agony. Yeah, he's kind of a lapdog to Abaddon, but you can see his resentment for his broken legion and his disgust at the petty squabbles the legions now war over. He's evil, but you can understand and sympathize with the man. 3. He actually uses tactics. Most sorcers' approach to combat is to boil someone's insides or throw doombolts. Iskandar gets creative. When he can he'll spend months in advance laying traps, sabotaging minds, weakening infrastructure. It's like the best parts of Raven Guard and Alpha Legion doctrine backed by the psychic might of a sorcerer lord. 4. He's kind of a badass. Yeah this blends in with the sue part, but come on. Say what you will, the man's got style.

Reasons why Iskandar is also a damn Mary Sue: 1. He's a Legionere who defeated and humiliated his own Primarch. 2. He has a Yu-Gi-Oh style deck of Tarot cards with bound demons he can summon. 3. His hetero-lifemate NOTgirlfriend is a Dark Eldar Scourge (re: an edgy elf with angel wings) who can solo whole squads of marines. She, an Eldar, can live with him INSIDE THE EYE OF TERROR just because. 4. Unlike most familiars who betrayed their masters at Prosperon Khayon's stayed loyal and became a teleporting demon wolf who, again, can sooo whole squads of marines. 5. His ship has a chick in a stasis tube serving as a machine spirit, but also controling whole armies of Mechanicus robots.