Thousand Sons

Thousand Sons
Battle Cry	"All is dust..."
Number	XV
Original Homeworld	Prospero
Current Homeworld	Sortiarius (latin for sorcerer), also known as the Planet of the Sorcerers
Primarch	Magnus the Red
Strength	Each one of the Nine Cult contains hundreds of Sorcerers leading thousands of Rubricae, giving somewhere under 10,000 Sons in total.
Specialty	Psykers, Chaos Sorcerers, Just as Planned, Taking key points with minimal casualties
Allegiance	Tzeentch,(And whoever is working for him at the time), whoever asks for their aid that is not a xeno
Colours	Teal, yellow, & gold, post M.31 ,although some warbands may adopt alternate color schemes (Pre-Heresy: Red with Gold trim)

"The point was to learn what it was we feared more: being misunderstood or being betrayed."

– Adam Levin

"If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans."

– Woody Allen

"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance"

– Thousand Sons catchphrase/motto pre-heresy

"NERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD!"

– A typical Space Wolf commenting on The Thousand Sons

"Everything is dust in the wind."

– Kansas, "Dust in the Wind"

The Thousand Sons are a Chaos Space Marine legion that fully devote themselves to Tzeentch. Their Primarch is Magnus the Red, an extremely psychically powerful Daemon Primarch with one eye and a magnificent red mane. The legion, when founded, had a mutation in the gene-seed that caused uncontrollable mutation that led to quick death (presumably because it was corrupted by the warp). Magnus became desperate in saving his legion, so he made a pact with Tzeentch and sacrificed one of his eyes to seal the deal. By that time only about 1000 marines remained alive. Turns out this sacrifice was in vain because Tzeentch tricked Magnus into believing that the deed was done, when in fact the sacrifice was only done to post-pone the mutation in the gene-seed. During the siege of their home planet Prospero by those damned furries, the Thousand Sons started to succumb to random mutation and turn into something that must not be named before dying violent deaths. Later, on the Planet of the Sorcerers, Ahzek Ahriman of the Thousand Sons cast the Rubic of Ahriman to save the legion again, but failed, as their mortal bodies were turned into dust and their souls bound to their power armor forever.

No, seriously. Incredibly pissed-off dust. Due to this, they have the single coolest battle cry ever. A far reaching, otherworldly whisper into the soul, "All is dust", which makes it all the more terrifying and awesome. Unfortunately, being literal dust means that their one true weakness is the almighty vacuum cleaner. Luckily, the Imperium has still not caught on to this, so for now... ALL IS STILL DUST HA HA HA!

They are also the only known Traitor Legion to still have their own PDF equivalent called the Spireguard which used to defend Prospero back in the Great Crusade and is now defending Sortiarius. Spireguards unlike the raging retards of other Chaos Cultists are well disciplined and thought well of by the Thousand Sons, acting more like an armed and trained militia rather then a rag-tag team of drug addicts and serial killers. This is to not only pay sentimental homage to their original home but it also allows allied support for the Thousand Sons during a campaign to kick the furries in their hairy ass nuts. Therefore making the Thousand Sons one of the few reasonable traitor legions that is not Alpha Legion or Blood Gorgons.

History

Pre-heresy

During the pre-Heresy era, when the Great Crusade was underway, the Thousand Sons was the first legion to exhibit psychic powers and were the deadliest, the killiest of all the legions because on top of being Astartes, they extensively (and freely) used their psychic powers from all kinds of different disciplines at the same time. Naturally, because of the Imperium's never ending fear of psykers, they were usually distrusted by most of the Imperium, especially Mortarion and his Death Guard. Nevertheless, they were tolerated because they were totally awesome, used their abilities to wondrous effect in service of the Imperium, and in general were exceptionally badass (Superhuman warrior-monk magicians for the win!!).

However, the Thousands Sons' luck ran out eventually. Magnus and his Legion were called to the Council of Nikaea: a grand gathering of the Emperor and most his sons to decide if the Imperium would allow Astartes to use warp based abilities. At the Council of Nikaea it was determined that these powers were too dangerous, so therefore restricted. While they were never proved to be sorcerers, the Thousands Sons were forced to dissolve their Librarius along with everyone else, except for the White Scars, who ignored it, the World Eaters, whose Librarium was so small they didn't even bother disbanding it, the Space Wolves who believed that their librarians somehow weren't working with the warp, and the Word Bearers, who were already quietly sacrificing people to chaos. Predictably, Magnus didn't give a shit either and headed home to Prospero to continue being a sorcerer in secret.

Heresy

Welcome to Prospero Bitch!

Before the actual start of the Horus Heresy, Magnus learned of Horus' corruption and used his powers of sorcery to warn the Empra about his oh-most-favored son's impending treachery, and that his favored son, if not stopped, was about to fuck everything up and destroy everything the Emperor had sought to build. Unfortunately Magnus' contacting the Emperor in this fashion could not have occurred at a worse time: it caused the Webway portal and the Golden Throne which the Emperor was building to suffer a Blue Screen of Death (Windows has stopped responding. In the grim darkness of the far future there is only Windows Vista) and become damaged beyond repair, and in addition caused a massive psychic blowout across all of Terra, crippling Astropath communication and inducing psychosis-related rebellions and suicides world-wide (see Outcast Dead novel).

Only slightly Way too bummed that he had screwed-up the Emperor's master-plan, Magnus headed back to Prospero in order to prepare to receive the Empra's mercy (read: to be killed in a very cruel way), and sent the Sons' fleet to buy some drinks. Meanwhile, the Emperor, royally pissed at Magnus for damaging the Throne and unwilling to believe his most favored son could betray him, sent the Space Wolves to arrest him. Horus, who was digging Chaos already, pulled a move worthy of Eldrad Ulthran in terms of dickery, and sent a fake message to Leman Russ - with orders to destroy the Thousand Sons instead.

Unable (or unwilling) to contact the Thousand Sons to offer them a last chance to surrender and evacuate the civilians, the loyalist Space Wolves opened fire on Prospero, Magnus' homeworld, and caused immeasurable damage to some of the largest caches of knowledge in the fucking Imperium. Chief Librarian Ahzek Ahriman then decided to ignore his Primarch's orders and, in a show of true manliness, led the Thousand Sons and the Spireguard in a defence of the capital and the lives of all within. Outnumbered something like five to one against not only the Wolves but the Adeptus Custodes and the Sisters of Silence, the Sons managed to inflict heavy casualties to the Wolves, but everything started to fall when two or three of the Sons' officers exploded after using too much Warp energy, causing a chain reaction of the Thousand Sons randomly mutating and exploding. The defensive line was reduced to the Pyramid of Photep, Magnus' HQ and last shelter for the civilians. Magnus finally joined the battle, unable to watch his Sons get massacred any more, and decided to challenge Leman Russ in single combat. While he put up a good fight, even breaking Russ's breastplate and piercing one of his hearts, Russ eventually beat Magnus down. Just before being hacked to pieces by the angry brother and as the Wolves started to close in on the remnant of his Legion, Magnus gave himself over to Tzeench. He and the rest of the Thousand Sons reappeared on the Planet of the Sorcerers. Magnus swore vengeance against Russ and the other Marines who had stupidly ignored his warnings, and started plotting against the Wolves and the rest of the Imperium that betrayed him.

Inferno puts a different set of events to describe the end of the Battle of Prospero. In-universe, an examination by the Adeptus Astra Telepathica reveals that only a being such as Tzeentch could have teleported anyone across the galaxy, and as always, power demands sacrifice. The writer goes on to mention that some insane scholars theorized that rather than transporting the remaining survivors of the Thousand Sons, Tzeentch only teleported Ahriman to the Planet of the Sorcerors, consuming his remaining brother Legionaries as a sacrifice to fuel the act. Every other Thousand Son after that point was a duplicate created by Tzeentch to have Ahriman cast the Rubric.

After these events Tzeentch walked up and sat on his throne in the Hidden Library, at which point he conjured a martini glass with his alcohol of choice and sipped from it. He then set it down on the arm rest, held his hands together, chuckled and muttered "Just As Planned".

Rubric Marines

The Thousand Sons' custom/basic infantry unit:The Rubric Marine.

"Just as planned!"

– Ahzek Ahriman, who'd never been so wrong in his life before (or after) that

(Aka The Day Management changed all the employment terms and conditions and forgot to inform the workforce, not even a memo. The Unions were pissed.)

As mentioned previously, the Thousand Sons' army was at one point 66% dust. This was primarily because of Ahzek Ahriman's FML spell: The Rubric of Ahriman.

They didn't take the news well...

This rite damned everyone without psychic powers to be turned into ash and their soul to be sealed for all eternity into their permanently sealed armor unless the armor itself is broken; until Games Workshop gets its head out of its ass (which will probably never happen), it also damned those WITH psychic powers, as Gee Dubs is now claiming most of the Scarab Occult Terminators were psykers who got Rubricked, which also means that only the most powerful psykers lived through the spell.

Originally this was supposed to stop the mutations they were experiencing, as ongoing mutation paired with the earlier slaughter of the Thousand Sons by the Space Wolves meant that they were slowly dying out, and Magnus and the Thousand Sons actively sought a way to stop it. Figuring out his own method from Magnus' spellbooks, Ahriman crafted a ritual that caused any Marines with mutations to either survive with their mutations cured and psychic powers augmented - or turned to dust if they weren't a strong enough to resist the change. It's worth noting that Ahriman's plan was actually to cure the whole Legion of mutations, but the Warp being the Warp, things got out of hand. Suffice to say Magnus was fucking pissed and sought to kill Ahriman, but Tzeentch applauded Ahriman and saved his ass. The spirit-armor Marines became known as Rubric Marines.

Rubric Marines are automatons - without a strong guiding presence, they lapse into a passive state - they are immortal beyond even a Space Marine's immortality and thus make the perfect guardians for the libraries and bases of the Thousand Sons. When guided by a Sorcerer or placed in the front lines against a foe, their old battle-hunger returns and they move with more of a sense of purpose. They obey orders without hesitation, and know no fear. Making them far more fearsome, their Sorcerers equip them with modified bolter rounds that are enchanted to explode into bursts of white-hot warp-fire on impact, burning through armor with incredible speed. Additionally, since they're functionally animated suits of armor, they possess phenomenally strong supernatural protection due to their construction and are a bitch to kill as a result. They are, however, incredibly slow.

Whilst the current generation of Rubric Marines date back to the Thousand Sons' expulsion of Ahriman, it's believed they have the ability to make more by using altered and notably scaled-down versions of the rite that resulted in the Rubric. Even with this, however, the creation of them is lengthy and time-consuming, ergo guaranteeing that their enemies will slowly whittle down their numbers by drowning them in corpses, which is pretty much the tactic used by the Imperials against chaos marines constantly. Though, like all major Chaos Marine forces, the Thousand Sons have their own armies of lesser men: Surprisingly non-traitor Chaos Guard called Spireguard, which is used to drown their enemies in corpses or to tie up Imperial meatshields whilst Rubric Marines and Sorcerers do the jobs that matter. In editions past it was mentioned, that Thousand Sons Sorcerers can reanimate killed (broken?) Rubric Marines with a simple yet time-consuming ritual and Magnus himself can somehow bring back fallen Sorcerers in his super-awesome Black Tower on the Sorcerers Planet. All of this was possible due to how the Rubric made the souls of both Golems and Sorcerers all but immune to the powers of Warp so they cannot be nommed by daemons - although, as Erebus showed in "Betrayer", it is quite possible (though not easy) to resurrect even one whose soul "was torn apart and eaten by daemons". It was never retconned, so we can assume that this fluff is still valid, and no matter how many Thousand Sons you've killed, they'll always come back from the dead. At least they wouldn't do it right the next second, just after you've killed them.

Tabletop-wise Rubric marines are of debatable use. Yes they're fearless, are fairly good at being shooty, especially if their bolters are enchanted, has a +4 invul save, so basically, they rape any kind of infantry that doesn't have the toughness of a Terminator. But on the downside, they're slow like termies and aren't necessarily as tough as them, they're nearly useless if the sorcerer leading them dies, they don't wow anyone in CQC, and overall they're hard to use for beginners. Overall, sort of a bridge between the shootiness of Slaanesh Noise Marines, toughness of Nurgle Plague Marines, and the fearlessness of Khornate Berzerkers. Throw them in a Rhino and let the games begin. You really have to know what you're doing with these guys. They CAN do quite awesome, but you need to use them right. And having Tzeentch smile upon you (in a way) never hurts.

The Thousand Sons have a distinctive battle cry "All is Dust." Only the relatively rare standard Marines they have however, scream it - instead, the sorcerers typically emit it as a sonorous chant, accompanied by flickers of warp-light as the squad emerges from seemingly nowhere.

Ahzek Ahriman, aka The One Who Psy-Bolts your Ass to Death.

Post-Rubric

Like most other Chaos legions, the Thousand Sons broke their coherence after the Heresy and split into small warbands, or in their case "warcovens" (because space witches). Those warcovens are usually not just small, but tiny, with few of them having more than four or five sorcerers and a few dozen golems. As the Thousand Sons fleet survived the burning of Prospero and the Rubric pretty much unscratched, every single one of these covens usually has at least one cruiser-class ship and probably a few escort wings, and it's not uncommon for them to fill these ships with some nasty shit like Dark Mechanicum robots, daemon engines, summoned daemons, or animated constructs to make sure they're safe from boarding parties despite their numerical disadvantage when it comes to clashes with other CSM warbands. They usually hire themselves as mercenaries for bigger warbands, Dark Mechanicum forges, or the Black Legion, in exchange for resources, knowledge, and magical trinkets, which they then move to their base of operations on the Soritarius, the Sorcerers' planet; there, they can study them and nerd out in their libraries, while plotting to outshine each other in "the nerdiest sorcerer of the Galaxy" contest. While many of them no longer hold much love for their daemonic Primarch (no surprises here as his good and noble aspect was consumed in the creation of Ianus / Janus, the first supposed Grand Master of the Grey Knights), their loyalty to him stems from the simple fact that he's capable of bringing dead sorcerers back to life without even need for their corpses, with a nice bonus of having the access to the Soritarius' resources and research facilities. Still, some warcovens (like Ahriman's Prodigal Sons) went rogue and cut their ties with their new homeworld, and some decided to wear black and join the Despoiler in his Long War - in fact pretty much all of the Black Legion's top-ranked sorcerers and diviners are ex-Thousand Sons, and they are amongst the most valued members of the legion, some even part of Abaddon's inner circle.

With the redo of the Thousand Sons line, the above has been quite heavily retconned. While some did break from the Legion, many remained within its ranks; splitting into Thrallbands (Small Companies) and Sects (Small Chapters). While they are members of the Legion none are exactly loyal (although there are some standout cases of those who are). Each individual brother serves his own purposes and sees his group as a way of personal advancement. In the same way, the leaders of groups serve Magnus only because of the resources and connections that come with being in the Legion. Even the Rehati and their Cult Command (Magnus’ Inner Circle, kinda) are implied to all be scheming against each other, and even him to an extent. This is not that dissimilar to the old lore, as each group is essentially its own warband, generally doing what it wants. While using the resources of Sortarious in exchange for occasionally helping out in the Cults aims, in fact, some groups (mostly from the Cult of Duplicity) have been exiled for disobedience/team killing yet still remain in the cult because they are useful. So basically nothing changed much apart from we now have a legion of autistic space wizards fumbling about as they fail to purge the space furries because Bob's too busy dicking Dave over.

Wrath of Magnus

"ENOUGH! You are all my sons, born of my blood. Some loyal and faithful through the ages; some wayward and treacherous, walking their own paths. But the crimes of the past mean nothing. All paths have led back here. The Blade of Fate hangs above Fenris; together, we shall drive it deep into the icy earth of that worthless world."

– Magnus the Red

As of recently, Magnus has gotten off his ass and returned some semblance of unity and order to his legion (which had been falling apart for ten thousand years) in a colossal scheme of Just as Planned to royally fuck up the Space Yiffs, involving Daemons, Wulfen, and Bringing the Planet of the sorcerers into the material realm. Doing this, they used the fact that the Wulfen only appeared when Daemons appeared to trick the Grey Knights and Dark Angels into thinking that the Wolves had fallen to chaos. This ended with a dead Wolf Lord, the majority of the Fenrisian population being either killed or Sterilised by the Grey Knights, the chapter crippled very badly, and currently bitching and crying their way to Cadia to recover.

Seeing the way Morty launched the invasion of the Scourge Stars, the Sons realized that they needed a place too. So, they took several planets from the Imperium, including the homeworld of the Mordian Guardsmen!

Legion Disposition

Pre-Heresy

The Thousand Sons had Nine Fellowships, each of which roughly equivalent to a normal Company. The Legionaries of the Fellowships were further divided into Cults, each with their own Psychic Specialty. They are listed below in no particular order.

• Corvidae: The Corvidae were the Seers of the Thousand Sons. They traveled the Warp in search of all outcomes of the future. Ahriman was their Magister Templi. Magnus' equerry, Amon, who was his adoptive father, was also Corvidae.
• Pyrae: As the name suggests, the Pyrae were a Cult focused on offensive spells, mainly fire (Perhaps they like the Salamanders). Khalophis was the Magister Templi, who died from warp overload at the Burning of Prospero, due to possessing a warlord titan, killing many furries.
• Raptora: The Raptora used powers of Telekinesis to form kine shields and punch shit with their mind. Their Magister Templi was Phosis T’kar, one of the few marines who managed to scare the shit out of a Custodian.
• Pavoni: The Pavoni were the masters of Biomancy and Fleshcrafting, and were known to be vain enough to rival the Emperor's Children. Their Magister Templi is Haathor Maat, who was so beautiful Fulgrim tried to get him for his Legion once.
• Athanaeans: The Athanaeans were the telepaths of the Thousand Sons, and were capable of mind control (They usually couldn't control someone completely, merely alter their thoughts - e.g. make them think enemies were allies.) and mind reading. They were useful in finding out enemy strategies. Their Magister Templi was Baleq Uthizzar.

Post-Heresy

After the Rubric of Ahriman, Magnus replaced the Legion's Nine Fellowships with Nine Cults. Each of them specializing in a facet of Tzeentch. while these cults may wax and wane in power, there are always nine.

At the top of the Legion is Magnus the Red and his Rehati. Each of the Rehati is a Magister Templi, and one of the most powerful and favored Daemon Princes or Exalted Sorcerers in the legion. At the head of each Cult is a Magister Templi and his coven of nine powerful Exalted Sorcerers or Daemon Princes, who help him run the Cult. These Cults are a gathering of unnumbered Sects that are lead by Sorcerers, who, whilst inherently self-serving, are nonetheless working towards the same common purpose.

• Cult of Prophecy: These guys are guided by the incessant whispers that bleed from the warp. They divine the outcomes of multiple futures, and seek out events that can be twisted to their own purpose.
• Cult of Time: They view the flow of time as an unwrought resource that can be shaped into a weapon. By their victories, ripples are sent both forwards and backwards in time, so that their enemies may be defeated before they are even engaged. One particularly cool example of a Time Sorcerer is when a squad of Imperial Fists were forced to relive the same events over and over until all of them died.
• Cult of Mutation: They embrace the warping of flesh, and also the warping of reality itself. By their hand civilised planets are transformed into Daemon worlds, and entire populations moulded into grotesque abominations and various assorted gribblies.
• Cult of Scheming: To them, the creation of convoluted plots is to them a form of profane worship. Every conquest and withdrawal is a perfectly planned manoeuvre, a single step that leads towards some unseen master stroke. Naturally, the phrase Just As Planned applies most naturally to these guys.
• Cult of Magic: Dedicated to the pure and unfettered use of sorcery, their bloody campaigns are launched to secure arcane objects held by Imperial, xenos and other Chaos forces, making them part Tomb Raider part Space Wizard. These artefacts are used as foci in the weaving of devastating spells.
• Cult of Knowledge: These guys are drawn to the myriad curiosities hidden throughout the galaxy, particularly tomes of eldritch learnings, dark secrets and paradoxical logics. Through such lore, the cult is able to extrapolate the weaknesses in their enemies, and in the fabric of reality itself.
• Cult of Change: Anathema to order. They are the great unravellers, launching their armies wherever civilisation and reason exist. Similarly, in places of utter anarchy, the cult appears to impose their ever-shifting will. The most chaotic of the bunch, tied with the Cult of Mutation.
• Cult of Duplicity: Is a unique within the Legion in that it both is and is not guided by a unified desire. The Sorcerers of this cult are by their very nature deceivers, at once appearing fractured and singular in their purpose. As such, it is impossible to know whether the sects within the cult are acting independently or as part of a singular, terrifying plan.
• Cult of Manipulation: Using its tendrillar web of influence to sway the actions of its enemies. Vast networks of mortal and daemonic spies allow the cult to oversee their plots as they unfold through assassination, possession and the wreaking of pure havoc. Easily some of the most dickish.

Consisting of multiple Thrallbands, each Sect is lead by an Arch Magister who's an Exalted Sorcerer or a Daemon Prince with his Retinue, Familiars and Bodyguards. They have their own color scheme that is assigned by their Arch Magister, to distinguish them from other Sects. Thrallbands consist of nine lesser Sorcerer Thralls under the command of a Magister, who is a Sorcerer, Exalted Sorcerer or Daemon Prince. Beneath the Magister and his favorite wizards are lesser thralls – Aspiring Sorcerers and Scarab Occult Sorcerers who direct the ranks of lifeless Rubricae and Scarab Occult Terminators. Thrallbands may go on their missions alone, or with other Thrallbands. Some Thrallbands may have been exiled from Sortiarius, or left to do their own thing. Regardless, they always work towards furthering the Cult's goals, whether they know it or not.

Not much detail is given as to how the Thousand Sons' armory of vehicles works post-rubric, beyond the fact that they do still have and use vehicles, old legion leftovers as well as new stuff they stole. It's probably safe to assume that it's all maintained and piloted either by human cultists or Tzaangors these days with maybe a few leftover Rubric Techmarinesnomancers.

Notable Thrallbands

• The Prodigal Sons: Ahriman's Warband. They're the unoffical posterboys of the Sons.
• The Tizcan Host: They are known for their delusion that the Rubric is a feasible way of achieving purity, and they announce their prescence on the battlefield by launching down massive iridescent rays of light. As you do.
• The Sect of the Red Echo: Once known for their calmness, they are now known for causing such havoc that those in the Cult of Time can supposedly hear the screams of their victims in the Warp following them wherever they go.
• The Crystal Harbingers: The cool kids that get to dive into the very centers of the Silver Tower of Tzeentchs to find out various secrets, daemonic bargains, and other such chaotic things to use to fuck with the Imperium.
• The Hermetic Blades: As a Sub-Sect of the Cult of Mutation, the Hermetic Blades believe that flesh is a prison of the soul (or at least, those in the Blades that have flesh do). They tend to take prisoners back to Sortarius to subject them to gruesome and soulflaying tortures.

Connections with the Blood Ravens?

It's never proven to be absolutely canon, but in the "A Thousand Sons" novel from the Horus Heresy book series, there are some hints that the Blood Ravens stemmed from a Thousand Sons cult who remained loyal to the Emperor, which was a large force of Thousand Sons marines who were sent outside Prospero before the Space Wolves came to fuck the whole planet over. Specifically, the most painfully obvious of the hints is this particular line from the novel where a remembrancer is using divination:

It's too late... the Wolf is at the door and it hungers for blood. Oh, Throne... no, the blood! The Ravens, I see them too. The lost sons and a Raven of blood. They cry out for salvation and knowledge, but it is denied!

Since these Marines never fought the Space Wolves and weren't drawn into Magnus' plans of heresy and revenge, or didn't even hear about it, after getting their planet bombed, they remained loyal to the Emprah. Probably because they, like Leman Russ, discovered after the fact that it was a trick. Sucks to be Russ when he found out.

In the Age of Darkness short story Rebirth, Revuel Arvida is the last survivor of a scouting party from a ship that made it back to Prospero. The end of the story has him saying "knowledge is power" and focusing on the raven of the Corvidae cult on his pauldron (also, the rest of his armor is red). He gets off of Prospero with the help of the White Scars later, after surviving for ages alone without food or water whilst fighting psychneuin, then getting involved in a fight against Mortarion's bodyguards (need we add that this was a fight between the Terminator elites of two Legions, and Arvida survived despite being clad in regular power armour), and finally creating a psychic beacon to get his and the Scars' arses off the planet. Except that wasn't final, as he spent four years at war beside the Scars, fighting the flesh-change, bitch-slapping Eidolon with his psychic powers and guiding the entire Legion fleet to Terra through the Webway. Compare his name to "Azariah Vidya," the earliest recorded (though not the first) Chapter Master of the Blood Ravens.

Eventually though it was revealed that Arvida merged with his Tutelary spirit and/or a broken Shard of Magnus which he left behind on Terra when he broke the Golden Throne. The resulting amalgamation cured Arvida's body of mutations (but sealed around one of his eyes with scar tissue) and took the name "Ianius" (also the name of his Tutelary) Possibly later to be known as Janus, the founder and the first supreme grandmaster of the Grey Knights, especially since physical descriptions of Janus show him with a squint in one of his eyes. Much shit was flipped by TS, BR, and GK fans that day, while fans of Arvida were just glad to know that his tale wouldn't end as a That Which Must Not Be Named.. On the other hand, it does not explain what happened to his gene-seed (assuming it was replaced by implants from the Emperor like Epimethius having his Dark Angel gene-seed replaced and sealed).

And note that the Blood Ravens have no idea which legion or chapter they originally came from and the fact that they produce an unusually higher number of Psykers than your average marine chapter and the Thousand Sons were known to have a large number of Psykers in their legion, as well as having a fetish for various flavors of knowledge. Also, the Thousand Sons' pre-heresy colors are strikingly similar to the Blood Ravens', the only difference is that instead of a white trim, the Blood Ravens use black, but the armor's overall color and their helmet's visor color are virtually the same.

Additionally, certain records were found upon Kronus that alluded to the Chapter's origin, yet Thule had them destroyed. Some suggest that the evidence was so damning as to link them to prove this theory. Alternatively, it may simply be that the records were in fact Azariah Kyras' perverted /d/eviant porn and Thule destroyed it because of the sheer amount of extra-heresy it contains that it would drive any lesser man to insanity.

There is some more evidence that the Blood Ravens are a Thousand Sons offshoot in the book Dawn of War: Tempest, but that was written by C.S. Goto, so take it with a grain of salt.

The November 2016 issue of White Dwarf almost explicitly states that Blood Ravens are an offshoot of the Thousand Sons.

"Rather nice chaps, I thought."

– Brother-Captain Jefferies, Classy Marines Fourth Company

Daily Rituals of the Thousand Sons

• 04:00 - Morning Reveille: The Thousand Sons (at least the fleshbags) awake from their sarcophagi.

• 04:10 - Rubric Inspection: The Thousand Sons Sorcerers inspect the Rubric Marines to see if some sense of normalacy has returned to them.

• 05:00 - Morning Prayer: The Thousand Sons gather to pray that Tzeentch won't fuck them over and that the Imperium hasn't yet weaponized vacuum cleaners.

• 06:00 - Morning Firing and Sorcery Rites: The Thousand Sons practice their shooting and magical skills on warp beasts.

• 08:00 - Battle Practice: The Thousand Sons descend upon the twisted Pyramids on Sortiarius to test out their combat prowess.

• 09:00 - Morning Meal: A morning meal is handed out to the non-Rubric Thousand Sons by the legion's psychic serfs. The Thousand Sons are more forgiving to their serfs as they are most likely psychic and thus, more likely to share common kinship.

• 09:15 - Tactical Indoctrination: The Thousand Sons congregate and form plans to attract psykers from the Imperium and gather unknown knowledge.

• 10:00 - Midday Prayers: The Thousand Sons gather to pray that Tzeentch won't fuck them over again.

• 11:00 - Midday Meal: A light meal is prepared by the psychic serfs.

• 12:00 - Sorcery Training: The Thousand Sons Sorcerers practice their magic tricks to further harness the warp.

• 13:00 - Evening Firing and Sorcery Rites: The Thousand Sons practice their shooting and magical skills on even more warp beasts.

• 15:00 - Battle Practice: The Thousand Sons continue to train in CQC combat so they can one day beat the fucking furries.

• 16:00 - Re-Education Time: The Thousand Sons lecture captured non-psychic Imperial humans on why their prejudice towards psykers are bad and why they should feel bad before sending them off as laborers. At the same time, they lecture captured psykers on why the Thousand Sons are there to protect and nurture them and why psykers are the next step in human evolution.

• 18:00 - Evening Meal: A feast is prepared by the psychic serfs, which are cooked from the warp beasts that were hunted in the morning and afternoon.

• 19:00 - Meeting up with Magnus: The Thousand Sons meet with their Primarch on issues concerning them such as the proposal to create a republic just to piss off the Imperium, equality between psykers and non-psykers, the state of the Imperium and humanity as a whole, Tzeentch being a dickhead and why he should not be trusted and why knowledge is power.

• 20:00 - Sending 'Gifts' to the family: The Thousand Sons secretly steal some loyalist equipment and secretly give it to the Blood Ravens out of family kinship - the Blood Ravens have yet to realize the origin of these heretical trade deals. The Thousand Sons also try and send gifts and 'sorry' cards to their only friends, the White Scars, Emperor's Children and Blood Angels for supporting them even during the failure of the Nikea Council. Suffice to say the gifts (except those given to the Blood Ravens) are always destroyed by the Inquisition.

• 21:00 - Nerdin' Out: The Thousand Sons nerd out in the great libraries on Sortiarius. Some use their free time to train captured psykers on how to safely use the warp while others continue to berate captured non-psykers on why the Imperium is bad. Some play video games and talk about ancient Terran epics such as Star Wars and Star Trek, coincidentally those who play online video games may accidentally encounter Dante and co. doing the exact same thing. Some venture back to their old home of Prospero to get some lost relics/knowledge.

• 24:00 - Rest Period: The Thousand Sons rest in their sarcophagi.

Writefaggotry

• Ballad of the Thousand Sons
• Thousand Son and Guardswoman
• Confessions of a Wayward Son

See Also

• Codex - Thousand Sons
• Feel free to play this whenever your sorcerers are unleashing enough psychic dakka to put the Imperial Guard to shame.
• Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Thousand Sons(8E)

Gallery

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  Even with all of his powers, Tzeentch will never give up, even to Ahriman, the greatest of all riddles.

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  eh, warp lollipop.

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  HUH. OK. RAPTORS. THAT MAKES SENSE...

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  Where are the Sorcerer Dreadnoughts GW? Then again, due to the state of the sons right now, it may be impossible to make dreadnoughts in the conventional sense.

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  The golden years

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  ALL IS BUST

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  The Dust Terminators

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The Traitor Legions and Warbands of Chaos
Chaos Legions:	Alpha Legion - Black Legion - Death Guard Emperor's Children - Iron Warriors - Night Lords Thousand Sons - Word Bearers - World Eaters
Legion Offshoots:	Apostles of Contagion - Bloodborn - Broken Aquila Foresworn - Mouldering Claw - Plague Fleet - Prodigal Sons The Consortium - Warband of Subsector Aurelia
Fallen Chapters (Including Judged):	Adharon's Reavers - Blood Gorgons - Company of Misery Corpus Brethren - Crimson Slaughter - Deathmongers Death Shadows - Invocators - Lords of Decay Oracles of Change - Red Corsairs - Shriven The Brazen Beasts - The Flawless Host - The Scourged Skyrar's Dark Wolves - Steel Cobras - Voidrippers
Unknown/ Other:	Apostles of Minthras - Claws of Lorek - Disciples of Destruction Dragon Warriors - Extinction Angels - Hakanor's Reavers - Punishers The Cleaved - The Purge - The Pyre - Sons of Malice - Sons of Vengeance The Reborn - Violators - Warp Ghosts - Bleak Brotherhood