Green Men
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.
| Green Men | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
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| Battle Cry | Reap what we sow! | |
| Origin | Life Bringers | |
| Warband Leader | Tribulus Bercilak (officially Nikephoros Galen) | |
| Base of Operations | Arboria | |
| Strength | 5,000 during the Great Sowing | |
| Specialty | Biological warfare, scorched earth | |
| Colours | Green and brown | |
It is a testament to their utter insanity that even in the accursed realm of depravity that is the Eye of Terror, few would ever willingly side with the abominable Green Men. This comes off as no surprise, given that their highly coveted end goal is the extermination of all fauna in the Galaxy. Unfortunately, the lack of allies has done little to diminish their determination; over the millennia that they have plagued the Galaxy with their existence, they have more than proven themselves a substantial threat to the Imperium on their own. They are responsible for turning countless prosperous Imperial planets into toxic, uninhabitable Death Worlds, and there is no telling how many more will fall to their foul druidism before they are stopped for good.
Warband History[edit]
Once a part of the Twelfth Legion, the Green Men got their current name when the insane experiments of Genetor Nikephoros Galen turned them into half-human, half-plant monstrosities. Soon thereafter, they split from their Legion and became one of the very first Warbands of the Eye of Terror. Worshipping Galen as a god, they believe themselves to be the next stage of evolution and seek to exterminate all lesser creatures and replace them with the likes of themselves.
Notable Campaigns[edit]
The Siege of Terra[edit]
The Battle for Sud Merica, colloquially known as The Uprooting, was the battle christening of Galen's gene-modified Green Men. Although it resulted in a loss for the traitors, it established the vicious plantmen as a dangerous foe to the Imperium and provided them with a lot of valuable combat experience that they managed to turn into many a decisive victory later on.
The Battle of Rai[edit]
This battle was the turning point in the history of Green Men, the point when they ceased to be merely a part of the Life Bringers and went on to become a bane to Mankind in their own right. It is also of considerable importance to the Void Angels, for it was on Rai that they lost one of their most beloved early commanders and established one of their harshest feuds that persist to that day.
The Great Sowing[edit]
Arguably, this is the campaign the Green Men are most notorious for. It formed, along with WAAAGH! The Beast, a series of calamities that showed the complacent Imperium that even after the Scouring, the Galaxy was still full of forces hell-bent on its downfall. Although this campaign was a disaster for Mankind and resulted in the loss of one of the most important subsectors of Segmentum Obscurus, it was also an invaluable learning experience. The Great Sowing was the first major raid from the Eye of Terror after the Scouring, and the experience received from dealing with it went on to help the defenders of Mankind to deal with much greater incursions later on.
Notable Members[edit]
Nikephoros Galen, The Grim Sower[edit]
Notorious heresiarch, biomancer and Chaos Lord, Nikephoros Galen is responsible for countless act of omnicide across the Galaxy. Even the most well-learned members of Ordo Hereticus would be hard pressed to name many Traitors who managed to cause so much harm to the Imperium. Originally a high-ranking Genetor in the Twelfth Legion, Galen was primarily responsible for creating new forms of plant life and modifying existing ones to make them better suited to harsh conditions. It wasn't long before he started entertaining the thought that Humanity also needed gene modifications if it wanted to survive the horrors of the Galaxy. His research in this field, while originally benign and purely theoretical, eventually lead him astray and drove him insane. Convinced that humans needed to adopt the evolutionary advantages of plants, he created the Green Men - horrible amalgamations of man and plant that should not exist by natural law. His attempt to force the whole Legion to convert into Green Men eventually lead to his exile and rise to one of the preeminent warlords of the Eye of Terror.
Tribulus Bercilak, The Dendrarch[edit]
The despicable Dendrarch has been leading the Green Men to new atrocities ever since Galen's transformation into the Tree of Woe. Originally an ecoterrorist and a folk hero on his horribly polluted Knight World of Hautedesert, he was eventually recruited by the Life Bringers and rose in their ranks to become one of the Legion's Captains. Extremely valued by his Primarch Johannes Vrach, Bercilak was renowned for his for his valiance and gallantry befitting of a knight far beyond the bounds of his Legion. Forever haunted by his youth on a desolate Industrial planet, he saw the main mission of his Legion in restoring life to the worlds damaged during the Age of Strife. His dream of making Industrial Worlds green again brought him together with Galen, which eventually lead to his damnation. Convinced that Galen was a peerless genius and that he knew what he was doing, Bercilak eagerly assisted him in all of his endeavours, even when they started to become morally questionable. He was amongst the first to be injected with the Green Man genetic compound, which, apart from turning him into a plantman, had an unexpected effect on his brain chemistry, making him extremely sadistic and susceptible to rage. The valiant knight of old had died, giving way to a deranged psychopath delighting in slaughtering the creatures of flesh. Although he has committed countless crimes against Humanity since then, his arguably most infamous act is the inhumanly cruel murder of Antoine Antonelle during the Battle of Rai.
Vertumnus Alraun, The Agromancer[edit]
The unchallenged Agromancer of the Druidic Circle, Vertumnus Alraun lends his foul magic to Galen's deranged cause. Hailing from a Feral World suffering from a perpetual famine, he was eventually recruited by the Life Bringers and quickly rose to the position of Chief Librarian thanks to his outstanding abilities. A witness to all the horrors of hardship, he had always dreamt of using his psychic powers to help those in need. Yet the strict ruling of the Council of Nikaea robbed Alraun of this dream and turned him into an embittered man completely disillusioned with the Emperor. Seeing the Librarian's dismay, the Legion's High Genetor Wilmut Sachs used him to summon Daemons of Nurgle for him. Utterly disgusted by what he was tricked into doing, Alraun joined the faction lead by Sachs's greatest rival in the Genetory, Nikephoros Galen. Since he shared a lot of the same dreams and aspirations with Galen and Bercilak, he quickly agreed to take part in their 'Green Men' project. Like everyone else who was injected with the Green Man genetic compound, Alraun turned into a heartless sadist who valued lives of plants more than those of humans. He has been a bane to Mankind ever since, following Galen and Bercilak in their incursions and blasting their enemies with vile plant-based sorcery.
Warband Combat Doctrine[edit]
The Green Men are truly adept at jungle combat. But, unlike other Chaos Marine forces who are merely good at fighting in rainforests, the followers of Galen actually turn the jungle into their ally. With a combination of blasphemous biomancy and dark sorcery, they make the forest itself attack their enemies and slow down their advance. They especially like to manipulate the paths through the jungle, wearing the enemy down by making them walk in circles for hours on end, leaving them lost in the thickets or splitting them into several small groups and finishing them one by one.
What makes them even more unique is that they always bring the jungle to battle with them. In preparation for every battle they sow the battlefield with genetically engineered seeds that quickly grow to full-sized trees. They then use the resulting rainforests as fortresses, moving into their thickets and waiting for the enemy to come and get them. Using flamers and melta weapons to burn down the jungle instead of venturing into it had been a viable strategy against the Green Men a while ago, but they eventually adapted to it, breeding mutant trees whose smoke is amongst the deadliest of chemical weapons.
Since most vehicles cannot fight effectively in the jungle, the Green Men do not use make an extensive use of them. Nevertheless, they value Rhinos and Land Raiders as transports for their troops in open spaces. Many of their fellow Warbands find the Green Men cowardly for their refusal to fight in the absence of cover, yet this approach has successfully kept them one of the most numerous Warbands in the Eye of Terror for millennia.
Warband Equipment[edit]
The arsenal of the Green Men includes many unique biological weapons, most of which were personally created by their spiritual leader, the deranged savant Nikephoros Galen.
Lash of Torment[edit]
This dreaded scourge is essentially a long, sturdy thorny vine, the roots of which are hidden in a special hydroponic compartment of a Chaos Marine's backpack. With its thorns long and sharp as knives, it can slash an unarmoured target in half with a single strike. But it is also effective against armoured foes, since its thorns constantly secret a caustic venom that corrodes and softens ceramite. A skilful user can use the Lash of Torment to completely strip his opponent of his power armour in the middle of the battlefield.
Death Belcher[edit]
A disgusting parasitic mushroom looking like a wet sponge, Death Belcher grows on the suits of power armour worn by the Green Men and feeds on the blood spilled by them. It gets easily agitated by the noise of close combat and activates its defensive mechanism, emitting great clouds of acidic spores that burn and corrode everything they touch. Once cloaked in these clouds of death, the Green Men become almost invincible in melee, making sure that they get to spill enough blood for their Death Belchers to feed. Thus functions their perverted symbiosis.
Brambleseed Gun[edit]
Without a doubt, Brambleseed Gun is the most notorious of Galen's inventions. Its bullets each contain a seed of a diabolical parasitic plant. Once inserted into a living organism, it takes root in its intestines within seconds and, with startling speed, starts growing thorny vines similar to organic barbed wire that tear its unfortunate victim from within. To this day, this gun remains one of the most feared weapons wielded by the Traitor Legions; its mere mentioning is sometimes enough to make whole regiments of the Imperial Guard desert.
Galen's Net[edit]
The Rhinos and Land Raiders used by the Green Men are always covered in thick foliage, the vines of which constantly writhe like a mass of snakes. This is no mere decoration, as many a fool who tried to attack those tanks in close combat has learned the hard way. Whenever its vines sense a creature of flesh and blood approaching, they lash at it like tentacles, ensnaring it in a thick, sturdy net and choking it to death. Even if the victim manages to avoid suffocation, the deadly poisons contained within their thorns are sure to finish the job.
[edit]
The warband's focus on regular incursions dictates the necessity for a large, well-maintained fleet. Although most of the spaceships controlled by the Green Men hail back to the Battle of Rai, over the millennia spent in the Eye of Terror they have captured or commissioned a number of new vessels to meet their growing needs. The spacecraft they are most associated with is the Hesperide class battle barge, created by the Hereteks of Dark Mechanicus specifically to suit the unique needs of the Green Men. Its layout includes extensive orangeries that house all of the numerous plants and fungi that Galen's followers take with them to battle. Their decks are completely overgrown with foliage, resembling winding paths and glades of a jungle thicket rather than interiors of a spaceship. According to different sources, the Green Men possess from ten to fifteen battle barges.
Warband Beliefs[edit]
The Green Men follow the Green Gospel of Galen - a compilation of Galen's quotes and deeds written by Bercilak. This unholy tome is a testament to the Genetor's utter insanity. Using elegant Hegelian dialectic as a starting point, it eventually degenerates into deranged raving, pseudoscientific gobbledegook and genocide apologetics.
According to Galen, true progress can only occur when two opposites merge and give way to a superior third, which includes and combines elements of both of these opposites. Since this should also apply to all forms of life, the combination of flora and fauna must be superior to both of them. Therefore, it has to replace them entirely, no matter if it essentially means wiping out all of the existing life in the Galaxy. Unfortunately, most people are unappreciative fools who cling on to their outdated flesh, so they need to be punished for their close-mindedness with death and suffering.
The Green Men consider themselves to be the next step of evolution for all life in the Galaxy. Their dreadful end goal is extermination of all the existing life and its replacement with mutated horrors grown in vats by the Genetors of their warband. Although this megalomaniacal plan is unlikely to ever come to fruition, the Green Men will never stop trying to fulfil it. This puts them amongst the most dangerous and persistent foes of the Imperium.
Warband Homeworld[edit]
Ever since the Battle of Rai, the Green Men have been based on the Death World of Arboria. A Daemon World prior to their arrival, it was meticulously cleared by the Green Men from all life and signs of civilisation, until but a barren orb remained. It was from this foundation that Galen remade the world to suit his perverted tastes. These days, Arboria is one of the deadliest planets in the Galaxy, with every blade of grass capable of killing an unprepared visitor.
The planet's two continents are covered entirely in noxious jungles, where the the air itself is poison, and one of the strongest chemical weapons in the arsenal of the Green Men. Many of the trees there are possessed by Daemons, they constantly prowl the thickets in search for some fresh food to stuff into their gaping mouths glowing with a sickly green light. But even those which are not are deadly in their own right. Some tear their victims apart with prehensile branches, some grow neon-coloured fruits that explode in a hail of shrapnel on touch, and some house swarms of killer bees that live in symbiosis with them. The fauna of these forsaken woods is comprised of abominable chimerae who look like improbable combinations of mismatched body parts that should by all logic not live, yet are universally fast and deadly.
The shores of Arboria's continents are washed by the Sargasso Ocean which is so overgrown with algae that is has more seaweed than it has water. Its surface is constantly covered with a thick layer of bright green phytoplankton that stings like fire. Those fools who would in spite of that venture into its waters are almost guaranteed to be eaten by colossal Cnidaria lurking in its depths.
Rumours persist that the whole of Arboria has been transformed by daemonic forces from a rock into a cyclopean living fruit with stone-hard peel instead of the crust, baneful acidic juices circulating underneath it instead of magma and enormous seeds in its middle instead of the core. Each one of those seeds is said to contain a horrible Daemon personifying one of the destructive aspects of nature. If Arboria is ever destroyed, these Daemons would be set loose upon the Galaxy.
The Tree of Woe[edit]
Once it was known as Nikephoros Galen, the Grim Sower, the unchallenged leader and spiritual liege of the Green Men. Now it is the Tree of Woe, Arboria's most prominent landmark, a tree the size of a mountain that is clearly visible from space. Technically, it is not a plant, but an enormous Daemon in the shape of a tree, and its profane nature would be obvious to any observant onlooker. Its dry, blackened bark forms monstrous grinning faces, the veins on its leaves form arcane pentagrams and its gaping hollows constantly emit wails of pain and torment.
This unholy place serves as a perverted fortress-monastery to the Green Men. Its upper branches that pierce the planet's toxic atmosphere serve as the landing docks for the warband's spaceships, its lower branches bend and creak under the load of its crude barracks cobbled together from rotting wooden planks, and its dark cavities lit by bioluminescent fungi serve as its great halls. The Green Men also keep their holy tree alive by a constant stream of sacrifices. They put their prisoners into narrow cages hanging on rusty chains from the tree's branches, cut their wrists and leave them bleed to death into the soil underneath the Tree of Woe. A constant downpour of blood has eventually turned it into a foetid bloody swamp, in which the tree's slime-covered roots writhe like colossal flayed worms.
The Green Chapel[edit]
The Green Chapel is both the residence of Tribulus Bercilak and the main centre of Galen's worship on Arboria. The columns of this Gothic cathedral are tree trunks, and its walls are formed by their intertangled branches. It is here that the Dendrarch reads his deranged sermons to the battle brothers of the warband. Its most distinguishing feature is the Holy Flowerbed, a personal garden maintained by Bercilak. The exquisite, fragrant flowers that grow there would be a great contrast to the monstrous flora of Arboria - if not for one important detail. Instead of flower pots, Bercilak plants his flowers into the bodies of living men chained to the floor, with their limbs amputated. The roots of his plants constantly suck their life juices, causing them enormous pain, while their pollen possessed of wonderful healing properties forces them to regenerate, keeping them alive. It is said that the oldest of the flower pots in Bercilak's collection have been there for several millennia.
New Cockaigne[edit]
The home of Vertumnus Alraun, New Cockaigne perfectly suits the madness of its master. At the first glance, this grove appears to be the only normal woodland in the whole of Arboria. Its trees bear a multitude of fruits of all shapes and colours, its bushes are lined with bright little berries, stout little mushrooms peek out from its grass here and there, and it's hard to make a step without crushing some of the nuts scattered on the ground. There is, of course, a twist to this paradise: all of the produce growing there is extremely poisonous, causing unbearable pain, madness and slow death. Like skeletons draped with skin, Alraun's starving prisoners wander about this cheerful garden, slowly driven insane by their hunger, yet unable to eat any of the succulent fruits hanging before them. There is no escape for them: Alraun's life-giving powers make sure that no matter how much they hunger, they can never die. When feeling particularly good, the Agromancer takes long strolls in his domain, stuffing himself with grapes and fruits from the silver plate carried by his butler servitor and chuckling softly at the suffering of his prisoners.
Warband Appearance[edit]
Having discarded their humanity long ago, the Green Men are mutated monsters that have even less in common with humans than some of the Xenos species. An unholy amalgamation of flesh and plant enabled to exist by the Ruinous Powers, they are covered by sticky green film in place of skin, through which their bulging veins protrude. With every breath they exhale foul-smelling pollen that causes allergic reactions and may even lead to anaphylaxis. Moss-like growth has replaced their hair, and their bodily orifices constantly leak viscous secretions.
The Green Men do not use traditional dyes to paint their power armour; instead, they cover it with sticky green juices of Arborian plants. As a result, it always has a lumpy, slimy appearance, with insects and rotten leaves stuck to it. A lot of their equipment is made from Arborian wood. Although it always appears wet and mouldering, it rivals ceramite in its durability. The most distinguished champions of the Green Men even wear full suits of power armour carved entirely from wood.
When not wearing their armour, they usually walk around completely naked, as they see nothing wrong with nakedness. This, however, is hardly the only peculiarity about their behaviour. They like covering themselves in mud and spreading it over their bodies, when left alone, they may sit silently in a single pose for hours, if not days, and their mood depends strongly on the weather, with sunny spells making them hyperactive and irritable and gloomy weather turning them melancholic and cruel.