Corvus Corax
Corvus Corax, the Common Raven, also known as the Northern Raven, is a large, all-black passerine bird was the Primarch of the Raven Guard. Corax was big on fast assaults and is notorious both for being the head of one of the hardest-hit chapters during the Horus Heresy and for the steps Corax took to try to help the Imperium, as well as the self-imposed exile he put himself to in an attempt to atone for what he had caused. Whilst /tg/ often jokes that he's emo, he's also a complete badass, like a lot of the Primarchs, and unlike this fucker actually got shit done.
The Liberator
Like all the fucking Primarchs, Corax was scattered by Chaos to prevent the Emperor from wrecking their shit. Corax wound up on Lycaeus, a dry, dusty world with no atmosphere, orbiting the planet Kiavahr. At this time the planet was a technologically advanced Forge World, providing Kiavahr's gigantic manufactorums with minerals extracted from Lycaeus by slave labor.
The slaves of Lycaeus were mostly regular people - inhabitants of the moon, as well as criminals, political opponents of the wealthy aristocracy on Kiavahr, and Kiavarhan workers who had done crimes such as failing to meet quotas or taking one too many bathroom breaks - in essence, Lycaeus was an unlimited source of free, exploitable manpower, which they kept in line with hired guns and openly executing anyone who tried to escape.
When the people of Lycaeus found Corax as an infant, they were mystified - no one could identify where he had come from and yet all could tell there was something unearthly - and extremely important - about the child. They named him Corax - "The Deliverer," in their language - and in spite of the risks and drain on resources, they took him in and kept him safe from their masters. Believing that Corax was their salvation from the Kiavahrans' tyranny, they began training him in the various skills he would need both as a leader and as a warrior: urban warfare, close combat, and demolitions work as well as political and philosophical training and analysis - ultimately Corax's abnormally-fast maturation (being a Primarch and all) comforted the slaves and united them in believing that Corax was the savior that as a people they had waited ages for.
Finally the day came when Corax was old enough to assume leadership and assume his destiny. He began his task by quietly organizing the workers into fight teams, promoting the best, smartest, and strongest to squad leaders. He began using the mines' fabrication tech to create weaponry, and then hid stockpiles of equipment in strategic positions throughout the mines. Corax took full advantage of the environment the Kiavahrans had set up, doing a bang-up impression of Anonymous and staging strikes, sit-ins, and riots in strategic spots, knowing that the Kiavahrans would deal with them harshly and feed the flames. Finally things reached their breaking point and Corax's forces launched their attack, taking key positions. With a combination of sabotage, strategic demolitions, and access to manufactured/stolen weaponry, Corax's forces killed the occupation force to the man and the moon of Lycaeus declared its independence.
When Kiavahr's rules struck back with their armed forces, Corax was ready for them, having seized the equipment of the defense forces Kiavahr had left behind, and used the fabrication equipment to make demolitions-grade ordnance for the battles to come. At every battle, the Kiavahrans found battle-hardened warriors who were exceedingly skilled in urban and hit-and-run warfare - one that constantly outmaneuvered their heavily-armed and armored forces and ambushed them constantly, whittling down their ranks. With Kiavahr's forces already demoralized and destabilized, Corax pulled a MacGuyver-esque feat of ledgermain and used the gravity tethers used for moving supplies and ore shipments to Kiavahr with a set of nuclear mining charges, blowing the Kiavahran manufactorums to hell and guaranteeing that the Kiavahrans couldn't produce a goddamned thing. The tech guilds who ran Kiavahr plunged into civil war, and with this, the war for control of Lycaeus was won.
In celebration, they re-named the planet Deliverance.
That very day, the Emperor arrived, apparently pleased with what Corax had accomplished, and after the two spent a day and a half together, he appointed Corax head of the newly-formed Raven Guard. Nothing is written regarding what Corax and the Emperor discussed that day except for Corax's sole condition of Corax's acceptance: that the Emperor help restore peace on Kiavahr. The Emperor agreed and the Adeptus Mechanicus took control of Kiavahr, rebuilding it and turning it into a glorious shard of the Imperium. Deliverance, meanwhile, was reinforced, and the citadel that had once housed the guards the Kiavahrans had deployed to maintain order was now, ironically, the headquarters of the Legion, dubbed "the Ravenspire."
Great Crusade
Little is spoken of Corax's role in the Great Crusade, though his contributions were many. A firm proponent of mobile strikes, tactical planning, and careful sabotage, the Raven Guard excelled at lightning fast strikes and covert operations, but several of the Primarchs were not quite so sold on it. Rogal Dorn disliked the combat style of the Raven Guard, though the two purportedly respected one another and made hilarious jokes about Roboute Guilliman's retardation, causing the Smurf to go cry into his big blue pillow. Corax would have likely gotten along swimmingly with Alpharius and Konrad Curze, due to similar tactical doctrines, but the three Primarchs would be deployed to opposite sides of the Imperium during the great crusade, and would never really manage to hook up.
One person who Corax flat-out didn't get along with was Horus. The pair never saw eye-to-eye, with Corax being too humanitarian for Horus' tastes and Horus being too much of a cockmongler for Corax's liking. The two also disliked one another's tactical choices, and on at least one occasion, the two nearly came to blows. Being the bigger man, Corax said "fuck this" and left Horus' command, hooking up with some kindred spirits in the form of Ferrus Manus and Vulkan; the three hit it off pretty well and found their forces worked really, really well together. They then went and continued the Great Crusade without having to deal with Horus' acting like a shit.
The Horus Heresy
When the Horus Heresy occurred, the Raven Guard, Iron Hands, and Salamanders were all on the front lines on Istvaan V. Each faction was well-suited to lead the vanguard of the attack, but they would wind up getting trapped and pinned down in the worst part of the fighting; when 4 more Legions turned traitor and joined Horus' rebellion, the three chapters already in the thick of it wound up in a bitter fight which cost the three legions scores of men - as well as the Iron Hands' Primarch, Ferrus Manus. Corax's forces, primarily designed for quick insertion and covert-ops duty and not sticking around in a meat-grinder caused the Raven Guard to take the heaviest casualties - and though they fought desperately alongside the Salamanders and Iron Hands, killing countless traitor marines in turn, the three legions were still slaughtered wholesale, forcing all three to withdraw, and leaving all three legions largely unable to stop Horus' advance.
Vulkan and Corax realized how dire the situation was, and returned to their homeworlds to rally additional troops and pursue the renegades. Corax fell back to Deliverance and sought to rebuild his forces in order to help the Imperium ASAP - and he was desperate. His warnings to Cernel Joson were not listened to and now it was too late. Far too late for now, anyway. The Imperium was collapsing, with the loyalists outnumbered and Guilliman chasing Alpharius halfway across the galaxy in the universe's biggest version of hunt the last webway gate, further thinning their forces. The Emperor needed warriors, and Deliverance had none to spare. Searching for a solution, Corax beseeched the Emperor for a way to quickly restore his legion to strength. Voracious was sent to the original complex that Empy made the Primarchs and Astartes and through ancient books discovered some of the research notes the Emperor had left behind when making the first batches of Space Marines. Using techniques gleaned from these books, Corax began essentially cloning marines at an alarming rate.
He did not heed the book's warnings, however, and he quickly learned why the book advised against this - most of the warriors that emerged from the tubes were malformed and physically and mentally retarded to the point where C.S.Goto looked stable in contrast. Only about 1 in 5 were viable enough to be proper warriors; the rest were fielded as meat shields. With a warped army of screaming clones feeling that the urgency of his mission was of more import. After a fair amount of fuck ups, a solution was found and Corax had discovered a way to make stronger, faster, and more quickly maturing(physically) Astartes out of toddlers. There were those that opposed this amongst the legion stating that if it were right to give a 5 yr old that much power and produce them that quickly, then the Emperor would have done so, but Corax held that they were in dire straights and it called for an exception. Then the Alpha Legion laid the FUCK down on that entire plan, and corrupted the gene-seed that the entire project was and ever would be using. Corax led attacks against the Traitors and penetrated the rear area of the Chaos forces' supply lines before destroying them, which slowed their advance considerably.
After the Horus Heresy, Guilliman came back and had a sudden surprising outbreak of common-sense(this is a source of hot debate, many view this decision as the highest degree of fucktarded), recommending that the legions subdivide so that no one man could ever hold the kind of power that led to Horus butt-fucking the entire Imperium. Corax hesitantly agreed, and split his forces, but he remained wracked with guilt; he could not forget what he had done to help save the Imperium, and was left with the horrid choice of what to do about the shambling abominations he had created. After pondering for hours as to what should be done he decided to mercifully put the screaming abominations down, praying for their souls - and for his. He then locked himself in Ravenspire, and for nearly a year, did not came out, having spent most of that time in Lamentation and the rest playing Dwarf Fortress. When he did emerge, Corax left Deliverance and made a bee-line for the Eye of Terror, heading there, finally, to settle the score.
Quoth the Corax: "Nevermore."
It is believed that like Leman Russ and Vulkan, Corax will return in the final apocalyptic battle versus Chaos, when the Emperor returns - and that then, and only then, will he have the absolution he sought. /tg/ often jokes that on that same day, Indrick Boreale will talk normally, and Macha will get laid.
Gallery
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Corax model. Won a Golden Demon award.
| The Primarchs of the Space Marine Legions |
|---|
 Loyalist Corvus Corax - Ferrus Manus - Jaghatai Khan Leman Russ - Lion El'Jonson - Roboute Guilliman Rogal Dorn - Sanguinius - Vulkan |
 Traitor Alpharius/Omegon - Angron - Fulgrim Horus - Konrad Curze/Night Haunter - Lorgar Magnus the Red - Mortarion - Perturabo |