Johannes Vrach

Johannes Vrach, the Bringer of Life

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

"Pity Johannes. Of us all, he was the one least suited to being a soldier - yet he was also best suited to overcoming the Orks. I do not wish there could have been another way, only that he had been stronger."

-Gaspard Lumey, private correspondence.

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 loss of Rai after the end of the Hektor Heresy, 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.