Darius Cyaxares

Darius Cyaxares
Discovered (world)	Simurgh
Discovered (period)	c.822.M30
Legion	Eighteenth
Heraldry/Sigil
Horus Heresy role	Loyal

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.

Appearance

Of average height in terms of primarchs, Darius had tanned skin and a athletic but well muscled body. He had long black hair pulled back into a thick pony tail looped with golden rings that fell just below his neck but with both sides of his head shaved in an undercut. Due to exposure to the warp as a babe, he is now blind, his eyes are pure silver like pools of liquid metal and his face has a timeless youth to it giving him a rather otherworldly appearance.

He usually wore long loosely fitted robes of either vivid or muted colors. His artificer armor was much better fitted; slender and streamlined and was colored more of a burnished gold color than the radiant gold of the Emperor and his custode. In battle he wielded an ancient force shotel named "Atropos" while leaving his other hand free to cast warp powers.

Darius is a philosophical yet judicious man. Due to his upbringings he has a very spiritual demeanor, though he has cast off religion in favor of the Imperial Truth. He enjoys visiting and counseling his brothers, as their father once counseled him. He often quotes various proverbs and challenges his brothers to think outside the box when they are presented with difficult decisions which annoys more than a few of them (I'm assuming).

He embraces his brothers individuality On occasion he will provide them with cryptic prophecies, though he dares not look too far into the future after being traumatized with what he saw the first time he did so. While he tries to maintain a humble desposition, many are unsettled when they look into his warp tainted eyes, or feel he is looking down on them with his riddles.

Youth

Like his brothers, Darius Cyaxares was created in the Emperor's laboratory deep beneath the Himalayzian Mountains. Through the malfeasance of the Ruinous Powers, he and all his brothers save Hektor were stolen away from Holy Terra and sent tumbling through the Warp. As he travelled beyond space and time, his containment pod was damaged and Darius awakened to gaze upon the madness of the Immateria. The sight forever changed his eyes, leaving them sightless pools of shifting, liquid silver.

Darius' damaged capsule crashed nearby the hive Pulvar on the planet Simurgh. Aristocrats and merchants of Pulvar were busy with their amusements and noticed nothing. The soldiers saw the light in the sky and decided it was a problem for the aviators, the aviators saw the object falling towards the ground and thought the soldiers would deal with it. Pulvar's workmen heard the crash, but were busy with their duties. It was only the Gosheni - the tinkers and scavengers of Pulvar - who came out to investigate. The band that laid claim to Darius' pod were well-pleased at their find, thinking that the valuable materials could slowly be sold off to fill their bellies. Their surprise at hearing the soft cooing of an infant from within set off a discussion of what to make of the infant. Some felt that he would only be a liability to the group. But dark-haired Bithia declared that the infant had been sent from the heavens to replace the one she had lost that same day, and those who had wished Darius gone from their ranks were too ashamed to deny her.

Bithia's boasts of the heaven-sent nature of her adopted son did not last long. Darius' swift maturation and prodigy convinced all among the Gosheni that the child was something supernatural. His blindness hindered him little, for his other senses were extraordinarily sharp. More telling was his gift of prophecy. Darius' advice, though sometimes obscure, came to be sought out throughout Pulvar, until the Hive's ruler, Ashpenaz the Golden, summoned the Primarch for an audience. Ashpenaz was not accustomed to asking for anything. He simply demanded that Darius serve him directly as a seer and in any other capacity the tyrant desired.

Darius rejected Ashpenaz, telling the tyrant, "It is not my fate to serve you. We shall both render service unto my Father who dwells above, although only my sons will remember your name." This drove the autocrat into a rage and he had his guards drag the Emperor's son to the torture chamber. Though the Primarch could easily have slain his assailants, he meekly put himself in their hands and endured the lash and the rack for three days. At the end, the torturers of Pulvar could only report that they now wept whenever they thought of their old craft.

Asphenaz the Golden realised that Darius could not be broken, but did not yet think himself defeated. Resigned to destroying that which he could not possess, he had the Primarch thrown into a pit of cybernetically-deformed gladiators. These wretches were driven mad with the pain of their deadly implants, and Asphenaz had long used them to gain some amusement form the disposal of his enemies. Yet when the gates were thrown open and the cyber-gladiators goaded towards Darius, they walked towards him with their weapons lowered and knelt at his feet, worshipping the being whose presence eased their torment.

As Darius laid a soothing hand on one of the mutilated gladiators, Ashpenaz felt his own heart shrink in his chest. Although the tyrant was lord of Pulvar and it surrounds, his would-be victim, clad only in the patchwork robe of a Gosheni, had shown himself the master. Ashpenaz the Golden fell to his knees and begged Darius to forgive him, but the Primarch smiled warmly in response and denied the need. It had always been their fate to come together in this way.

Under the guidance of the Primarch, Ashpenaz sought to reform his laws and military. But conspirators among the aristocracy, jealous of their privileges, rose up to overthrow the old tyrant. Darius and his family in the Gosheni saw Ashpenaz smuggled out of Pulvar and the small band fled to Yathrib, a nearby hive.

The Coming of The Emperor

However, after defeating the four kings, Simurgh began to grow more and more unstable, as other power hungry warlords, would-be kings and conquerors continued to surface to take their place, all wanting the same thing the four kings wanted.Time and time again Darius defeated these opponents, but not matter how many he toppled or what he tried the resulting power vacuum led to an endless chain of war and intrigue. It was as if the greedy nature of man was some kind of Hydra, no matter how many heads he cut off, more simply grew.

Seeking an answer, Darius began a great fasting and dove deep into prophecy but what he saw horrified him. The stars burned as a malevolent darkness engulfed it all . A war, a war without end! Scarred by his visions, Darius had all but given up when suddenly a golden light descended from the heavens and out stepped a stranger unlike anyone Darius had ever seen.Intrigued by this stranger, Darius invited him to his temple to meet him. This stranger was none other than the Emperor himself. The two conversed by many days straight.

The Emperor was disappointed in his son. As a priest, Darius had never wanted to rule content to his studies, meditations and religious teachings. It went against everything the Emperor had bred him for. He explained to Darius the evils of religion and allowing the people to go astray of the Imperial Truth. Convincing Darius to take up the responsibility he was destined to, the Emperor granted him a single company from the 23rd legion and a month to set things right, as a final test that Darius had learned all that the emperor had taught him.

Taking command of personally trained them in the arts of sorcery and the planets most noble weapon, the Shotel. Taking up the blade of an ancient king, Darius led his men across the planet on a great crusade.

When the emperor returned, he was not disappointed. Darius had cast-off the religion that had bound him to inaction and taken control of the planet for himself. The emperors methods and his Imperial Truth had proven itself to Darius and brought peace to the war-torn planet. Eternally grateful to his father for the lesson, Darius bowed his head and proclaimed the planet now belonged to the emperor. With that the Emperor bid his son to rise, welcoming him to the Great Crusade and granting him command of the 23rd Legion in its entirety.

((TL:DR : Darius is trained to be magic prophet on planet by religion. People in power keep trying to use Darius for their own gains, forcing Darius to kill them. However because of his religious teaching Darius refused to take power himself, and feeling self entitled the people of the planet keep fucking everything up until the Emperor convinces Darius of the Imperial Truth and to step it up. Darius is grateful for the lesson and now loyal to the Emprah))