Life Bringers
Summary of Legion XII
"Paradise Awaits"
Nurgle, biological/chemical warfare focused resident Nurgle Marines, but not quite death guard. Pragmatic and logical to the extreme, they would rather eradicate a world and rebuild it with terraforming, than have to fix it as it is. Highly protective of their battle brothers and allies. All officers cross-train as apothecaries and perform those tasks in addition to combat duties. Extensively used biowarfare before the heresy, were present both at Istvaan V, and at Terra. Became Nurgles chosen legion, incorporating his diseases etc into their weapons. Still believe they are healers freeing the galaxy from corruption, they continue to purge planets and reseed them with new life even after the Heresy in their warped view of a green paradise. This usually looks like a rotten mix between Catachan and Nurgle's garden where only plague marines and their cultists, genetically adapted and mutated for that biome, can survive for long.
Legion Tactics
The Life Bringers prefer to first soften up their enemies with chemical bombardments, creating a hostile environment that most would have trouble merely surviving in, then deploying right into this breach and delivering a crippling blow, their ground attacks focusing on taking out anti-air defenses. Once enough air superiority has been achieved with the enemy left unable to intercept incoming missiles the marines retreat and initiate virus-bombing from their ships in orbit, proceeding until the planet has been wiped of all life. This didn't change much after their fall, the plague marines now relentlessly spreading contagion with their bile spewers while Whirlwinds rain mutagens and biotoxins during their advance.
The organization structure of Life Bringers is fairly standard, with only minor deviations. Every offer is required to cross-train as apothecary, all sergeants equipped with a Narthcecium and responsible for keeping his squad alive as well as the collection of geneseed from the fallen brothers. Apothecarion ranks still exist, but are reserved for those who fully dedicate themselves to medical research and rarely enter the battlefield. Research is coordinated and reviewed by a High or Lord Apothecary, while specialist ranks such as Master Genetor and Plague Master perform the scientific work. Following the Hektor Heresy "Plague Master" became a catch-all term for every Chaos Lord leading Life Bringer warbands.
Legion Equipment
Pre-Heresy: White armor with red shoulder trim, Life Bringers became the example for the image of a typical apothecary. They had few embellishments on their armors save for markings indicating rank and chapter and displaying personal awards. The legion symbol is a bandaged heart. The marines themselves are brown skinned and never cut their hair, instead tying it into long ponytails similar to their primarch.
Post-Heresy: Though their colors remained the same, the armors of the Life Bringers are now rotten and corroded from the plagues bestowed by their patron God, sticky with putrid ichor leaking from the cracks and seams and surrounded by swarms of flies and clouds of toxins. The bandaged heart icon of the legion is displayed over the symbol of Nurgle, showing their allegiance to the Lord of Decay.
Legion Doctrine
Life Bringers put great value on the lives of friends and battle brothers, trying to minimize losses in battle. The Life Bringers believe it their duty to heal the sick and purge the impure, they are generally friendly and forthcoming when approached by allies. Like the native population of Rai they have strong bonds of family and brotherhood, squads tend to stick together in and out of battle.
After their fall to Nurgle most of the traditions remained the same, the Life Bringers still believing they are generously healing the galaxy of corruption and building a perfect universe by spreading Nurgle's plagues and transforming planets into toxic jungles, their warped view of a paradise.
Life Bringer gene stock was stable and of high quality during their service to the Emperor, all organs present and working as intended. After their turn to Chaos their geneseed is highly mutated. The Plague Masters maintain cloning tanks in their labs on Eden where they grow organs for implanting into new recruits and are hence capable of creating new astartes to bolster their ranks, however they also tend to experiment on the geneseed. As a result the actual quality and capability of the implants varies widely between recruits and the Plague Master who performed the procedures. Sometimes organs work well or even surpass regular versions, other times they malfunction or don't work all. Some newly inducted marines may lack certain organs, or have completely new ones, with varying results.
Johannes, Primarch of The Life Bringers
Appearance
Johannes was a stocky, ebony-skinned man with black hair going down to his knees, always tied into a ponytail with many colorful ribbons, as was customary among the natives of his home world, Rai. Anyone familiar with the culture of those people would be able to tell the exact region and city he hails from by the color sequence and form of those ribbons. He usually carried a stern look on his face, as if concerned about something, but was nonetheless friendly and welcoming to anyone who approached him, always ready to listen to their troubles and offer his help.
In battle, Johannes wore a master-crafted set of Tartaros pattern terminator armor, customized to appear a bit less bulky and equipped with an advanced Narthcecium of his own design that could be used to treat a wide variety of wounds on both Astartes and unaugmented humans of the Imperial Army. His preferred weapon was Surgeon's Hand, a custom lightning claw with thin and highly articulate blades attached to the fingers as well as scissors, tweezers and other surgical tools mounted on small mechadendrites, kept hidden and sterile in sealed compartments within the gauntlet until needed. It was precise enough to perform field surgery in addition to its function as a weapon. He also carried a combi-bolter with several types of ammunition, such as rounds carrying highly corrosive acids or fast-acting neurotoxins.
Youth
The primarch's pod landed on a jungle world Rai, the isolated centers of human civilization there maintained 19th century level technology. Quickly found and given to an orphanage, he was adopted by a surgeon from an old lineage of healers, even though he already had 5 children. His eldest daughter worked at that orphanage as a caretaker and took a liking to the strange boy that fell from the sky, eventually convincing her parents to take him in. The boy was given the name Johannes and became part of the Vrach family, his new parents and siblings raising him as one of their own. Johannes in turn loved his new family as well, and especially admired his father and his work healing the wounded and diseased. He took a big interest towards medicine and biology and displayed great talent in those fields, soon matching and even surpassing his adoptive father's abilities. Always working together they gathered planet-wide renown as the greatest doctors and brilliant researchers, finding cures for many of the diseases and disorders that previously affected the population. Life expectancy rose considerably, the technology and overall living standards soon followed as the people could now advance further into the depths of the jungle without fear of the many deadly spores from plants and contagious plagues carried by insects in the untamed rainforests.
Unfortunately, it didn't last. An exploration team looking for metal deposits deep in the wilds found the remains of a strange, ancient ruin. Archeologists followed, unearthing alien artifacts and metal tablets with writings in an unknown language. It is said that one of them must have started it, because at the same time a new, horrific disease appeared: the Red Death. It spread through cities like wildfire, the bodies of the infected slowly mutating uncontrollably until they became a writhing mass of organs that could no longer function as a single body and finally succumbed to death. As the best medical experts of the time, the Vrach family did their best to ease the suffering, but in spite of Johannes best efforts, no cure could be found. Slowly but surely the settlements of Rai emptied, both from infection and infighting as the healthy desperately formed closed enclaves and violently attacked anybody attempting to enter out of fear of bringing the Red Death in. To make matters worse, the doctors treating the infected started to succumb to the disease as well. Immune due to his superhuman physique but forced to watch his beloved family suffer from a plague he couldn't cure, Johannes grew increasingly desperate, spending days and nights in his lab, but to no avail. As he stood over a fresh grave of his youngest sister, the last of the Vrach bloodline, a large construct appeared in the sky. Giant, gold-armored warriors stepped on the planet.
The Coming of The Emperor
Johannes almost begged the Emperor to save Rai, accepting his offer to take command of a space marine legion immediately. The magos biologis sent to analyze the situation reported that the Red Death is impossible to cure, so the Emperor ordered a complete purge of all infected regions as well as most of the deep jungle. Watching from space as Rai burned, Johannes now knew what his duty was.
Everything that is tainted must be eradicated, only then can new life flourish. Only those who sealed themselves in closed enclaves on Rai survived, and so must he bring new worlds to the Imperium: attempting to integrate or replace indigenous cultures, solve their problems and create economic ties is folly, for just like the Legions Astartes brought the light of the Imperium to the natives, so can their delusions and corruption infect the Imperium. When the worlds are wiped clean new life can be brought upon them, and then it will flourish, free of taint.
As a primarch, Johannes taught these ideas to his legion. He carried an advanced Narthecium of his own design onto the battlefield, focusing on providing aid to the wounded over the destruction of his enemies. Like him, the Life Bringers are healers and researchers first, warriors second, their officers cross-training as apothecaries and carrying medical equipment in addition to their combat duties. They are grim and determined in battle, but genuinely caring for their allies.
The Great Crusade
After taking command of the XII legion Johannes dutifully led them on the Great Crusade. Any world deemed pure and willing to join the Imperium peacefully received considerable aid from the Life Bringers, who immediately proceeded to develop and spread vaccines against diseases common in the Imperium and the ones discovered on the planet, allowing trade and further relations to begin immediately with minimal risk. Simultaneously new crops and genetically engineered animals are introduced, ensuring high fertility and food production for the increasing population. Any civilizations that refused to accept Imperial rule or were believed to be corrupt in some way were completely purged, the Life Bringers first deploying to disable any anti-air defenses, then proceeding with a heavy bombardment with biological and then chemical weapons, eliminating all life down to the microscopic level. Afterwards new, carefully engineered and prepared life forms are seeded, first bacteria to eliminate traces of contamination and prepare the soil and atmosphere, then flora and fauna until the world is fit for human habitation and settlers are invited from overpopulated hive worlds.
The progress was comparably slow, but because of such dedication the Life Bringers always left lush Paradise Worlds and exceptionally fertile Agri Worlds in their wake. The sectors they conquered became the bread baskets of the expanding Imperium, supplying vast amounts of food to busy Forge Worlds and expedition fleets.
The Heresy
Training and working as a healer his whole life, Johannes never liked the fact that his duty involved warfare, hating to bring pain and death upon others. Though convinced of the necessity of his actions and refusing to be the one who would allow any sort of disease or discord to spread into the Imperium through his carelessness, he couldn't quite quench his own conscience. No matter how much he tried to justify it, telling himself how "there is no other way!" and "it's what must be done, for the best of all!" somewhere deep in his heart he couldn't help but see the ruin his legion delivers upon unwilling populations and wonder if there might be a bit of truth in the accusations of genocide thrown at him by some of his brother primarchs. Johannes spent as much time as he could treating soldiers in field hospitals and designing more efficient, fast acting bioweapons in his lab to get the fighting done as quickly and painlessly as possible, yet no matter how much he immersed himself in his work he could never rid himself of doubts.
When Hektor came to the Life Bringers, offering a way to forever free humanity from all disease, pain and suffering and asking to join his cause, Johannes gladly accepted. For the first time since leaving Rai Johannes was finally at peace with himself, confident with the voice in his head assuring him that Grandfather Nurgle loves all and there is no more righteous cause than to share and spread his gifts of plague across the whole galaxy.
Johannes brought the rest of his legion towards the worship of Nurgle, and the Life Bringers have left a terrible mark on every planet they fought on during the Hektor Heresy, spreading Nurgle's Rot and leaving countless worlds as uninhabitable, toxic Death Worlds. Johannes personally led his troops during the Isstvan Massacres, where their chemical bombardment crippled the Entombed legion and left a permanent scar on their geneseed. The Life Bringers were also present in the battles in Sol System and the siege of the Imperial Palace, supporting the Warmaster with their medical expertise, disposable cannon fodder in form of plague zombies and raining deadly biotoxins from their Whirlwinds. The residual traces from that battle still result in some rare cases of Nurgle's Rot deep in the underhives of Terra, long after the Heresy.
Post-Heresy
Following the death of Hektor, the Life Bringers retreated into the Eye of Terror. Johannes, now a bloated demon prince of Nurgle, rules a demon world he named Eden. It is a vast, toxic jungle where vicious, rotten predators hunt among the twisting foliage and giant mushrooms while swarms of insects buzz through the air. The Life Bringers and their cultists live in closed, overgrown city-enclaves similar to those that once dotted the jungles of Rai. It is here that they develop ever more horrific plagues and resupply the Plagueships carrying the servants of Nurgle on their endless quest to spread his putrid "gifts" and transform the galaxy into their twisted image of paradise.