The Entombed

The Entombed
Battle Cry	None, they fight in silence.
Number	VI
Founding	First Founding
Successors of	N/A
Successor Chapters	None
Chapter Master	Erebus
Primarch	Golgothos
Homeworld	Sepulchra
Strength	10,000 at the beginning of the Heresy
Specialty	Heavy armour, auxillary forces
Allegiance	Imperium of Man
Colours	Grey, white and bone details.

This page details people, events, and organisations from The /tg/ Heresy, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe.

Summary of Legion VI

The Entombed serve as the shock troops of the Imperium. They have long suffered from a genetic flaw which makes their geneseed difficult to recover from fallen battle brothers. They compensate for this difficulty by fielding more terminators, and interring their wounded in dreadnoughts more often. Their inevitable doom eventually wipes them out, but not before crushing some xenos, swearing revenge on the Life Bringers, and founding the Imperial Cult.

Homeworld

Sepulchra is a twisted world of dust and stone. Its pockmarked and craggy surface supports no life, but it would be foolish to judge Sepulchra by its surface. Deep below lies a network of thousands of caverns, teeming with subterranean life. From bioluminesent fungus and cave moss, to the devastating tunnelworm, to brutal tribes of Orks, Sepulchra is anything but uninhabited. The Entombed's Fortress Monastery, called The Catacomb, is made from the derelict remains of an ancient human spacecraft. Its deep cargo holds now serve as barracks and ossuaries, and its bridge serves as the command headquarters of the Legion. The only access to the Catacomb is either by three aerial access shafts, or by navigating the labyrinthine caverns. Because there are no humans on Sepulchra to recruit from, the Entombed draw their recruits from the many worlds local to the Sepulchra system. After the Hektor Heresy, this relationship was formalized into the Sepulchra Coalition, in which 20 planets near to the Eye of Terror exchanged loyalty and recruitment rights to specific Cardinals in exchange for protection.

Legion Tactics

The Entombed favor heavy armour and overwhelming firepower. They are most effective in close-quarters, tight situations, such as in the streets of a city, winding underground caverns, or in boarding operations. They employ a shattering tactic: Dreadnoughts laying down heavy fire with their Ossuary cannons, while terminators deploy behind enemy lines to disrupt the enemy. Entombed tactics have proved instrumental in breaking Ork charges and invalidating Eldar mobility, as well as displacing fortified positions during the Heresy. Late in the Great Crusade they began to field what would one day come to be called Chaplains, officers in charge of boosting the morale of their brothers.

Legion Organization

The Entombed favored an autonomous command structure. While most Legiones avoided a rank akin to Lieutenant, such a rank was the core of the Entombed command structure. Undertakers, Apothecaries in Terminator armour, were given command of two squads of ten marines, and given semi-autonomous command over their squads. Undertakers would be given specific goals, and were trusted to fulfill those goals however they saw fit. This fractured organization made it difficult to anticipate the Entombed on the battlefield, assisting them in their tactics of disruption and line-breaking. Late in the crusade, 20 chaplains were named Cardinal, each given command of many Undertakers, and given complete autonomy, save for the direct commands of Golgothos himself. Effectively, this simply enlarged the size of the autonomous cells of the Entombed, and allowed leaders to accomplish more on their own.

Legion Equipment

To compensate for their difficulty in recouping losses, The Entombed have opted to wear much heavier armour. The VI Legion has a disproportionately large amount of Terminator Armour, and because the geneseed of the dead often cannot be recovered, mortally wounded marines are hastily interred in dreadnoughts or given cybernetic prosthetics. The Entombed field a unique Ossuary Pattern Dreadnought, with thicker armour and armed with the Demolisher Cannons usually seen on Vindicators. The wide, bulky frame of the Ossuary necessary to bear the recoil of the Demolisher cannon was a transitional form between the relatively lithe contemptor patterns of 30k and the bulkier, slower patterns of 40k. The Primarch of The Entombed, Golgothos, is interred in one such a Dreadnought.

Legion Doctrine

The Entombed believe mankind to be a race of gods, sent to the galaxy to purge it of unworthy xenos and blasphemous witches. They put a great emphasis on respecting the dead, and their Fortress Monastery also serves as a great catacomb, where the bones of fallen Entombed are interred. After a battle, every fallen brother receives a formal funeral ritual, each of which takes several days. This reverence for the dead often frustrates more pragmatic allies, who continue to fight while The Entombed perform their last rites.

The Sacred Band of the Entombed called themselves the Unnamed. They chose to abandon their humanity, and instead become weapons to be used solely for the Emperor's will. They favored the teleporters of their Terminator armour, appearing amidst the enemies ranks to cause chaos and disruption. The Unnamed unnerved other members of the Sacred Band, for outside of battle they were utterly silent, and inhumanly calm. When battle begun, and they appeared amidst their enemies, they would unleash fury. They would scream, yell, bellow with all their might, as they crushed the enemy with their hammers or charred them to ash with heavy flamers.

Veterans of The Entombed are called Death Masks. In the tradition begun by their Sacred Band, they forswear their names and any sense of identity. It is believed that, because they are no longer men, they are utterly incorruptible, beyond reproach. It is said that a Death Mask marine could walk among the mightiest warp storm and not feel even the slightest pull of corruption. While this is an exaggeration, there is a kernel of truth to it, as by the time a marine becomes a veteran, he is likely so riddled with cybernetics that there is barely any man left inside the armour. Death Mask marines never, under any circumstances, leave their armour, having all of their biological needs fulfilled cybernetically.

Legion History

Great Crusade

The Entombed were created from the genetic material of their Primarch Golgothos. As with all of the Primarchs, Golgothos was genetically engineered to be a supreme super-soldier but was cast into the warp during his infancy along with his brothers. The Entombed served with great distinction during the Great Crusade, and did not once retreat from the field of battle. Soon after Golgothos' discovery, the Eldar craftworld Kaelor drifted near to Sepulchra. The fervent primarch would not bear this thread, and so he deployed his legions onto the twisted structure. Many other primarchs would have tried to destroy the craftworld from orbit, or sent a team of specialists with demolition charges. Golgothos, however, wanted to watch the twisted xenos die with his own eyes, and endaged them man to man. The Infinity Circuit was demolished by Golgothos himself, and the craftworld now drifts as a skeletal moon around Sepulchra.

The Hektor Heresy

After the Voidwatcher destroyed the Webway, he retreated to his homeworld to avoid the Emperor's wrath. The Emperor chose the two legions best suited for the task, The Entombed and the Thunder Kings, to bring justice to the traitor. Before battle, Brennus crafted a mighty warhammer for his brother, and inscribed his Dreadnought armor with protective runes. Thunder King drop pods rained down on the sundered planet, and Entombed marines popped into being using their teleporter arrays. These disruptive tactics proved devastating to the Black Augurs, though their divinations aided them greatly.

Constantly retreating, the Black Augurs petitioned Hektor for aid. Hektor knew that Johannes Vrach had been deriving a bioweapon from Golgothos' genetic data, and so he chose the Life Bringers. For several weeks, however, the Life Bringers' advance was blocked by a War Scribes fleet, deployed to protect the flanks of the Ostium invasion. When Arelex, Primarch of the War Scribes, gave his infamous retreat order after Isstvan V, the Life Bringers advanced on Ostium. [This paragraph subject to review]

During the final loyalist assault on the Augurs' fortress Monastery, Brennus ordered Golgothos to take his two finest companies and destroy a strongpoint from which the enemy was summoning daemons. This order would prove to be the Entombed's salvation, for only these two companies survived Ostium. The Life Bringers arrived just in time to relieve the Augurs, and from their dropships they deployed a vile red gas. This gas washed over the battlefield, leaving Augurs and Kings unharmed. When it seeped into the armor of the Entombed, however, it melted their tissue and sublimated their bones. Of the 45,000 Entombed marines deployed on Ostium, only 10,000 survived.

Legion Equerry

Obitus

Obitus was Cardinal of the Sepulchral See during the later parts of the Great Crusade. He led religious worship, codified doctrine, and had direct command of the Cardinals, making him de facto commander of The Entombed. Golgothos himself was not much of a strategist, and so delegated much, possibly too much, to Obitus. He began the trend of painting his armour with a dye made from the ground up bones of Xenos, which Cardinals and Bishops upheld all the way to M35. He is often attributed as the inventor or popularizer of the Crozius and Rosarius. Unlike most Entombed officers, he chose to wear lighter artificer armour rather than tactical dreadnought armour, and favored the heavy flamer over the storm bolter.

Obitus was extremely charismatic and a skilled orator. He did not tolerate disobedience or heretical speech, and actively discouraged discourse. Publicly he maintained a magnanimous persona, but in private he was conniving, greedy, and envious of Golgothos' supremacy. Obitus had high command of most of the Entombed forces, and in retrospect it can be seen that he would often deploy cardinals who threatened his supremacy into highly dangerous situations. This means of deniable assasination is at least partly responsible for the weakened state of The Entombed at the onset of the heresy.

Obitus was put to death several years before the Heresy, in an event that came to be known as The Emperor's Decimatus. When The Emperor learned that The Entombed had formed a religion contrary to The Imperial Truth, he was infuriated. When he arrived on Sepulchra, however, he cunningly determined that The Entombed need not be culled completely. Obitus, a handful of more vocal Cardinals, and 9/10ths of Legion VI were executed, but the remainder were allowed to live.

Erebus

Erebus was Lord Undertaker during the later days of The Entombed. He was chief Apothecary, charged with maintenance and protection fo gene stock, as well as the treatment of wounded marines. After Golgothos flew into the Eye of Terror, it was determined that the Lord Undertakers should be the supreme commanders of The Entombed, capable of unifying the Cardinals. Erebus was the 16th Lord Undertaker, and the last.

Erebus wears Tactical Dreadnought Armour like all Undertakers, and carries a custom-built Narthecium modified for war, capable of producing a powerful paralytic. He very rarely engaged in combat personally, and spent most of his time on Sepulchra, organizing the efforts of his cardinals from a distance. When The Entombed comitted to major conflicts, drawing him from Sepulchra, he would often lead battles from orbit or a forward observation post, rather than fighting himself.

Erebus was practical to a fault, avoiding risk whenever possible. If he decided the potential losses were too high, he would regretfully let whole worlds be lost. By the time of Erebus' command, the numbers of The Entombed had dwindled quite significantly. Erebus' life's work was in researching a cure for the geneseed flaw of The Entombed, but it was not completed before Mortis III.

Cardinal Merik

Known as 'The Deathbringer,' Cardinal Merik was 7th Cardinal, in command of 5 Bishops and 10 Undertakers. He wielded the standard equipment of a Cardinal: Terminator Armour, Crozius, Storm Bolter, and Rosarius. He often deployed into battle aboard a Land Raider. Merik was consumed utterly with his quest for vengeance. He fought alongside his primarch on Isstvan and Rai, and shared Golgothos' hatred for the Life Bringers. Marines of other legions sometimes whispered that his hatred was nothing short of madness. Merik defended no worlds, fights no xenos, and cared nothing for galactic conflict. He scoured the galaxy for the Life Bringers, and assaulted them at any cost. No other Cardinal in the entire Legion suffered losses on the scale of Merik, and he had been censured by Golgothos numerous times for his carelessness.

Merik was one of the few chaplains to survive the Decimatus, but was otherwise an unremarkable officer during the Heresy. He fought well, but did not distinguish himself. It was only after the Siege of Sepulchra, during the Scouring, that he began to make a name for himself. On the agriworld of Zeris II, he discovered an abandoned Life Bringers outpost. No trace of where the plague marines had gone could be found. Furious, and convinced that the populace was collaborating with the traitors, he put millions to torture. When he learned nothing, he slaughtered every man woman and child on the planet.

Cardinal Merik's death is shrouded in mystery. His battle barge was lost, and never seen again. Some claim he chose to steer into the Eye of Terror to join his Primarch's crusade. Others whisper that he fell to Khorne. None know for certain.

Writefaggotry

The Skeleton in the Caves

As a babe, the Primarch whould come to be known as Golgothos crash landed on a desolate, grey planet known as Sepulchra. The surface of Sepulchra were inhospitable badlands, with gale force winds kicking up dust storms which could rip the flesh off a man. Fortunately, Golgothos' pod crashed with such force that it pierced through the surface into the caverns below, and it is in these caverns that Golgothos made his home.

As a child, Golgothos lived by foraging for caveworms and scraping moss off of walls. As he grew, he began to hunt larger and larger game. The beasts of Sepulchra fell to his bare hands, and Golgothos would consume everything, leaving only the bones behind.

However, Golgothos' life was not safe, for deep within the caverns lived a clan of Orks. Many times as he was feeding, Golgothos would be discovered by wandering Orks, and be forced to flee. For many years he was forced to live cautiously, fleeing before the echos of Ork grunts.

It was not until he was a man grown that Golgothos chose to face the Orks in battle. The Orks had driven all game from the caverns, and so Golgothos was starving. Delirious and exhausted, Golgothos wandered passageways he had never been to before. Stumbling around a bend, he happened upon three Orks, arguing over the roasting corpse of a cave drake. Golgothos attacked the Orks with a ferocity he did not know he had posessed, kicking, clawing, biting, with his screams of fury echoing across the planet. The Orks never stood a chance.

After that, armed with an Ork Choppa, Golgothos grew to enjoy hunting orks. The Orks came to call him "Da skellytun in da caves," and told eachother tales of the bony creature which ripped apart Orks with its bare hands. Eventually, Warboss Skullgub decided he had had enough, and rallied his Orks to hunt Golgothos.

For months, Skullgub harried Golgothos. While Golgothos was mighty, he could not face hordes of Orks at once, and so he was forced to make numerous tactical retreats. Fleeing before the echoing CLANKS of Skullgub's mega armour, Golgothos came upon a pair of massive metal blast doors. Golgothos had never seen anything man made before, and so he marveled at the doors. However, he was quickly ripped out of his confusion by the CLANK CLANK CLANK of skullgub's approach. Golgothos banged his fists against the control panel in desperation, and miraculously, the door opened.

Within, Golgothos found polished metal hallways, with deep recesses in the walls. In each recess he found the ancient, dusty remains of a man: Golgothos had happened upon a crashed Catacomb Ship from the dark age of technology. He went deeper into the ship, looking for some choke point or other tactical advantage, and found it: A door leading into a personal Tomb. He looked within, and found, laying on a Beir, a well dressed skeleton. The skeleton was decorated with gold jewelry and gems, as well as medals which marked him as a military officer. On the officer's hand, dull grey and coated with a layer of dust, was an ancient Power Fist. With his mighty new weapon, and an advantageous choke point, Golgothos was able to drive off Skullgub's Orks.

The Discovery had confused Golgothos, however. He had never seen another human being before, never even conceived of the possibility that there were others. And yet, here in this catacomb, he had found the skeletal remains of hundreds of men. Golgothos began to think that Men were gods, or perhaps demons, meant to torment the Orks. He spent the next few years guarding the catacombs, and tending to the remains of what he believed to be fallen gods.

Eventually, Skullgub managed to corner Golgothos away from home as he was hunting. Outnumbered, outmatched, and staring down the gob of a gigantic mega armoured warboss, Golgothos called out to the gods for aid. With a loud CRASH, the roof before him caved in, and before Golgothos' tear-filled eyes was a Drop Pod of the Imperium of Man. From this Drop Pod emerged the Emperor himself, along with some of his mighty Space Marines. The Emperor cleaved Skullgub in two with his mighty power sword, and the Marines made short work of the remaining Orks.

The Emperor offered Golgothos a mighty legion to lead, and Golgothos required no convincing. As far as Golgothos was concerned, before him stood the King of the Gods, and such a being should not be questioned. The Emperor did not approve of Golgothos' superstition, but at least it was superstition of human superiority. Golgothos was given the VI Legion, which he named The Entombed.

The Entombed maintain Golgothos' faith to this day, believing humans to be Gods, sent to punish impure and inferior xenos. They guard their fortress monastary, called the Catacomb, and pay much respect to the dead.

The Fall of The Entombed

It was in the year of 391.M35 that Erebus, Lord of the Grave, received a message from the Children of Armok. The Children had discovered that the Life Bringers were destroying entire systems on the edge of the galaxy, converting them into twisted jungles for Nurgle's pleasure. What's more, Primarch Johannes himself had was rumored to be leading the operation. Upon hearing the news, Erebus chose to mobilize all 3,000 Entombed. He would have his vengeance.

Aboard the battle barge Catafalque, Erebus called out to the other Legions for aid, but only the Knights Draconian, a War Scribes successor chapter, responded. The Entombed and their ally set out for the Mortis system, a chain of agri-worlds used to feed the most distant backwaters of mankind. When they arrived, They found Mortis I and II already turned. Warp-spawned tentacles reached out from the surface all the way into space, tearing apart the support ships of the Imperial Guard.

Erebus steered his fleet to Mortis III, a hive world from which the Mortis sector was governed. In orbit, he convened a war council to make plans to defeat the Life Bringers once and for all. At this council, Knights Draconian Third Company Captain Eadwine Herschel came before Erebus on his knees, and begged Erebus to forgive his chapter for their failure at Isstvan V. The War Scribes Primarch had frozen when he learned of the traitor legions' treachery, and failed to warn The Entombed of the incoming artillery barrage which would doom their legion. In anger, The Entombed had declared the War Scribes to be Void, and from then on acted as if they did not exist. Erebus considered Herschel's apology for a long time before replying, "How can I forgive one who does not exist?" Many of the War Scribes were insulted, but Herschel was wise, and knew the response for what it was. The Entombed were stubborn, and in his Primarch's absence, Erebus had no choice but to abide by the Void Decree. Herschel knew that, for The Entombed, to even budge an inch was remarkable.

It was then that the Knights Draconian and The Entombed formed their plan: They would erect a special planetary shield, which would prevent the Life Bringers from deploying their gasses from orbit. If the Life Bringers wanted to turn this world, they would have to do so from the ground. Erebus deployed his forces on the ground, while Herschel held his forces in orbit as a mobile reaction force.

The Life Bringers arrived soon afterward, and engaged the Knights Draconian in space. While the Draconian ships were distracted, the Life Bringers snuck a smaller ship past their blockade. On this ship was a device called the Great Genesis, capable of spewing forth diseases and chemicals which would warp Mortis III into a nurgle-spawned death world. The Entombed marched toward the device, slowly but surely, while battle barges crashed and burned in the skies above.

When The Entombed arrived at the Great Genesis, they found that the Life Bringers had been busy turning civilians into plague zombies. A swarm of writhing corpses orbited the Great Genesis like an asteroid belt, with a core of Life Bringers waiting within. The Entombed showed no remores, no hesitation. They cut through the zombies like a scythe through wheat. As The Entombed marched ever onward, the Knights Draconian began to rain drop pods upon the enemy, breaking their lines and weakening their defense.

At that very moment, as the drop pods and demolisher shells were raining down on his men, Johannes Vrach himself emerged from the Great Genesis. The Daemon prince had been warped and twisted by nurgle, and from his mouth spewed forth vile gouts of bile, where they landed, Knights and Entombed alike died by the score. Erebus ordered his ossuaries to fire their mighty cannons against the hated foe, but Vratch retreated back into the Genesis.

The casualties were becoming too much, and so Herschel ordered his men to retreat. Erebus, however, stubbornly held his ground. The battle came to a standstill, the Entombed unable to advance, and the Life Bringers unable to push the enemy back. The stalemate raged for hours, with heavy losses on both sides. As dusk fell, however, the Great Genesis finally came online. Its mighty vents began to spew forth thick red clouds, and from its massive pipes flowed a sickening yellow sludge. The Ossuary dreadnoughts began to bombard the machine, but even their mighty cannons could not penetrate its thick hull. Herschel commanded his whirlwinds to strike the machine, but the heavy gales of toxins threw the missiles off course. Johannes Vratch emerged once more from the Great Geneses, surveying his victory with joy.

At that moment, when all seemed lost, a great eldritch light filled the battlefield. Looking up, Erebus saw with horror that a warp storm had appeared in the sky above Mortis III. His despair turned to exultation when he saw the primarch's own battle barge, Nurgle's Grave, emerge from the warp storm. Screaming through the skies came the Drop Pods of Golgothos and his Venerable Dreadnoughts, come to slay their ancient foe. With a CRASH, the dreadnoughts struck the ground, and the dreadnoughts came out shooting. They waded through the sludge without concern as it melted through their armoured plates, with not a thought toward self preservation. Golgothos barreled across the battlefield, shouting "VRAAAAAAAAATCH! VENGEANCE FOR THE FALLEN!"

The mighty Golgothos and the twisted Vratch crashed into eachother, blessed power fist meeting against mutated claws. As they dueled, they kicked up huge waves of sludge, crashing over their own men and causing fungal blooms to rip through their armour. The primarchs struck with the bitter hatred of five thousand years, each blow shaking the ground for miles. After hours of fighting, Vratch managed to gain the upper hand. He ripped off Golgothos' faceplate, exposing the ancient face within, and spat a torrent of bile into Golgothos' armour. Golgothos' flesh began to twist, and mushrooms tore through his flesh. As his body tore itself apart, Golgothos grabbed Vratch, shoved his demolisher cannon in his face, and fired.

Erebus cried out, with both joy and despair. He had simultaneously seen his beloved primarch and his hated foe die. He and The Entombed were normally silent in battle, but now they screamed. They charged forward through the sludge, guns blazing, and tore through the Life Bringers. The vile poison twisted their flesh and tore them apart, but not before Erebus and a few survivors made it to the heart of the Great Genesis, deactivating it for good, and saving Mortis III.

As he watched from his safe vantage, Eadwine Herschel wept. In all his years as captain of the Third Company, he had never seen such a divine display. The glory of the warring primarchs, the valiant stubbornness of The Entombed, their last glorious charge to save the planet, it was all too much for him to bear. Once the sludge had been cleared from the battlefield, Herschel had his men gather up the remains of the dead, and load them onto his battle barge. That day Heschel declared that The Entombed would forever be interred on Sepulchra, and that he would found a new chapter, The Watchers Of The Dead, to guard The Entombed for all time.

Game Material

Legion Rules

Erebus, Lord of the Grave: 2+ poison weapon but very low WS. High T and many W. Improves the FNP of the entire army by 1.