Darius Cyaxares

Darius Cyaxares
Discovered (world)	Simurgh
Discovered (period)	c.822.M30
Legion	Eighteenth
Heraldry/Sigil
Horus Heresy role	Loyal

This page details people, events, and organisations from the /tg/ Heresy, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe. See the /tg/ Heresy Timeline and Galaxy pages for more information on the Alternate Universe.

Appearance

Of average height in terms of primarchs, Darius had tanned skin and a athletic but well muscled body. He had long black hair pulled back into a thick pony tail looped with golden rings that fell just below his neck but with both sides of his head shaved in an undercut. Due to exposure to the warp as a babe, his eyes are pure silver like pools of liquid metal. His face has a timeless youth to it giving him a rather otherworldly appearance. He usually wore long loosely fitted robes in muted colours. His artificer armor was much better fitted; slender and streamlined in a burnished gold colour, rather than the radiant gold of the Emperor and his custodes.

Darius is a philosophical yet judicious man. Due to his vision and upbringing he has the bearing of a prophet, though he has cast off religion in favour of the Imperial Truth. He enjoys visiting and counselling his brothers, as their father once counselled him. He often quotes various proverbs and challenges his brothers to think outside the box when they are presented with difficult decisions which annoys more than a few of them.

Nonetheless, he embraces his brothers' individuality. On occasion he will provide them with cryptic prophecies, though he knows that whatever he can see is already set in stone. While he tries to maintain a humble disposition, many are unsettled when they look into his warp tainted eyes, or feel he is looking down on them with his riddles.

Youth

Like his brothers, Darius Cyaxares was created in the Emperor's laboratory deep beneath the Himalayzian Mountains. Through the malfeasance of the Ruinous Powers, he and all his brothers save Hektor were stolen away from Holy Terra and sent tumbling through the Warp. As he travelled beyond space and time, his containment pod was damaged and Darius awakened to gaze upon the madness of the Immateria. The sight forever changed his eyes, leaving them sightless pools of shifting, liquid silver.

The outskirts of Pulvar and the wastes of Simurgh

Darius' damaged capsule crashed nearby the hive Pulvar on the planet Simurgh. Aristocrats and merchants of Pulvar were busy with their amusements and noticed nothing. The soldiers saw the light in the sky and decided it was a problem for the aviators, the aviators saw the object falling towards the ground and thought the soldiers would deal with it. Pulvar's workmen heard the crash, but were busy with their duties. It was only the Gosheni - the tinkers and scavengers of Simurgh - who came out to investigate. The band that laid claim to Darius' pod were well-pleased at their find, thinking that the valuable materials could slowly be sold off to fill their bellies. Their surprise at hearing the soft cooing of an infant from within set off a discussion of what to make of the infant. Some felt that he would only be a liability to the group. But dark-haired Bithia declared that the infant had been sent from the heavens to replace the one she had lost that same day, and those who had wished Darius gone from their ranks were too ashamed to deny her.

Bithia's boasts of the heaven-sent nature of her adopted son did not last long. Darius' swift maturation and prodigy convinced all among the Gosheni that the child was something supernatural. His blindness hindered him little, for his other senses were extraordinarily sharp. More extraordinary was his gift of prophecy. Darius' advice, though sometimes obscure, came to be sought out throughout Pulvar, until the Hive's ruler, Ashpenaz the Golden, summoned the Primarch for an audience. Unlike the others who had requested the Primarch's advice, Ashpenaz was not accustomed to asking for anything. He simply demanded that Darius serve him directly as a seer and in any other capacity the tyrant desired.

Darius rejected Ashpenaz, telling the tyrant, "It is not my fate to serve you. We shall both render service unto my Father who dwells above, although only my sons will remember your name." This drove the autocrat into a rage and he had his guards drag the Emperor's son to the torture chamber. Though the Primarch could easily have slain his assailants, he meekly put himself in their hands and endured the lash and the rack for three days. At the end, the torturers of Pulvar could only report that they now wept whenever they thought of their old craft.

Cyber-gladiator of Pulvar

Asphenaz the Golden realised that Darius could not be broken, but did not yet think himself defeated. Resigned to destroying that which he could not possess, he had the Primarch thrown into a pit of cybernetically-deformed gladiators. These wretches were driven mad with the pain of their deadly implants, and Asphenaz had long used them to gain some amusement form the disposal of his enemies. Yet when the gates were thrown open and the cyber-gladiators goaded towards Darius, they walked towards him with their weapons lowered and knelt at his feet, worshipping the being whose presence eased their torment.

As Darius laid a soothing hand on one of the mutilated gladiators, Ashpenaz felt his own heart shrink in his chest. Although the tyrant was lord of Pulvar and it surrounds, his would-be victim, clad only in the patchwork robe of a Gosheni, had shown himself the master. Ashpenaz the Golden fell to his knees and begged Darius to forgive him, but the Primarch smiled warmly in response and denied the need. It had always been their fate to come together in this way.

Under the guidance of the Primarch, Ashpenaz sought to reform his laws and military. But conspirators among the aristocracy, jealous of their privileges, rose up to overthrow the old tyrant. Darius and his Gosheni family saw Ashpenaz smuggled out of Pulvar. A small group of their followers fled to the nearby hive Yathrib, where the Gosheni were many and the laws were lax. In the depths of Yathrib, Darius and Ashpenaz (now devoted to the Primarch) trained an army of outcasts to avenge the cruelties of Pulvar. Such an endeavour could not be kept entirely secret, even from so lax a regime as that of Yathrib, but Darius won the ordinary soldiers of the hive to his cause and they were glad to stay silent for him. After three months of preparation, Darius came to the Magistrix of Yathrib and informed her that she would now rule in the name of his Father. The outraged Magistrix ordered her men to throw out the upstart, but even her bodyguards had changed their loyalty.

From the victory at Yathrib, followed shortly by a campaign against Pulvar, Darius began to unify battered Simurgh. It is said that in this time the Primarch never raised his voice in anger, let alone struck another being. His presence and the miraculous deeds he performed swayed many to his side. Those who stood against Darius Cyaxares swiftly learned that the Goshenis' lives in the hidden places of the planet's underhives had taught them much about stealth, raiding, and manoeuvre, all skills that could be applied to warfare. The Gosheni struck from beneath without warning and seemed to disappear in an instant, a feat attributed to Darius' spiritual power.

The Coming of The Emperor

Unlike many of his warrior brothers, Darius never took the title of ruler. He anointed Ashpenaz the Golden as the Dictator of Simurgh and remained at the old tyrant's side to advise him. Few dared to question this regime, awed by the Primarch's power and welcoming the just rule of Ashpenaz. This enlightened despotism last until an even greater power arrived on the Hive World.

While Ashpenaz dealt with the day-to-day rule of Simurgh, Darius Cyaxares' visions of the future grew much more powerful. Storms of darkness roiled across the galaxy, clouding the light within the hearts of men. But the Eagle took flight from his nest and soared through space, kindling a human radiance to outshine the stars. Darius saw the Eagle arrayed in gold, and bearing his mighty spear and staff of office arrive on Simurgh and bear him away. And he saw hints of the Eagle in peril, but the Primarch's sight could not pierce the veil that the Adversary had placed upon this danger. The whispers of this last vision greatly troubled Darius. He spent much of his time in seclusion and meditation, attempting to finally break down the veil to the future and discover the identity of the Eagle's nemesis.

The Emperor of Mankind

The Emperor, too, was looking into the strands of fate. But His visions were focused on the fate of His long lost sons, and Simurgh came to loom large in His sight. The sign of a Primarch's hand was clear in this peaceful, obedient world, productive and harmonious, yet still outside of the embrace of the Imperium. When the Great Crusade reached Simurgh's system, the Emperor Himself landed upon the Hive World and went on foot, flanked by a host of golden-armoured warriors, to find his son.

Ashpenaz the Golden had once been a fool, but the scales had been lifted from his eyes long ago. He ordered his soldiers to welcome the starfarers and personally went to rouse Darius from his meditations, hastening the Primarch to meet the god-like being who had come to Simurgh. The meeting was as subdued affair as was possible, with no bodyguards or courtiers present. Darius, with Ashpenaz at his side, bade greeting to Hektor Cincinnatus and Arelex Orannis, who entered first as heralds of the Emperor. Darius Cyaxares' visionary sight showed him an image of Hektor at the head of the greatest army the Galaxy had ever seen, yet hollow and broken inside. He saw Arelex take wound after wound in defence of his sons, until his body was entirely replaced by machines. But when the Emperor himself entered, Darius saw no prophetic allegory. Once exposed to the healing light of his father, the Primarch's eyes returned to seeing the present world.

There was little need for argument. Darius Cyaxares put himself at the Emperor's disposal, and the ruler of mankind was glad to appoint his son as the leader of the Eighteenth Legion, the Crimson Hawks. On their voyage back to Terra, the two would discuss many things, including Darius' troubling visions of a danger to the Imperium. Though the Emperor took his son seriously, he explained to Darius that the veil over the looming dangers was not placed there by an adversary, but represented the vagaries of fate. Whatever perils would be faced were not yet determined, and so could not be foreseen.

The Great Crusade

Darius took command from the remarkable twin brothers, Aurus and Diatus Moelia, who had been stewards of his Legion for three years. On their first meeting, he warned them that they had little time left together. This prophecy that would come to pass the next year when Diatus Moelia was slain in an accident during the Legion's relocation to the Death World Kumul.