At the height of the Imperium, when the dominion of mankind had spread across the entire galaxy
and a final victory was near, the Emperor was betrayed.
Horus, his most capable and favored son, had secretly fallen to the ruinous powers of Chaos
and conspired with his brothers to destroy all that they had fought so hard to achieve.
This great betrayal split the Imperium in two.
When Horus marched on the gates of Terra itself, he was joined by half his brother Primarchs
and the legions under their command.
Among these was Mortarion and his Death Guard.
Perhaps more than any other legion, their fall to Chaos would leave them twisted and
deformed, evidence of the favor of their new master, the Lord of Decay, Nurgle.
Yet in the golden era before their fall from grace, the Death Guard, like the other Space
Marine Legions, were originally engineered from the gene-seed of their Primarch Mortarion.
But with the Primarchs scattered across the galaxy by the powers of Chaos, the legion
was left without its father.
At the Dawn of the Imperium, for over eight decades, they fought against alien tyrants
and dark cults as part of the Emperor’s Great Crusade.
The legion made use of an ancient tactic, unleashing relentless attacks shortly before
nightfall.
For this, the Emperor named them “Dusk Raiders” and their mastery of heavy infantry earned
them a fierce reputation as stubborn, enduring warriors.
Cast out by Chaos, Mortarion had landed on the toxic world of Barbarus.
The planet was eternally covered in a poisonous fog with the local human population forced
to live in shallow valleys where the atmosphere was most hospitable.
They lived in fear of horrific creatures and warlords that prowled above, which would sometimes
descend from the choking fog to slaughter and enslave all they came across.
When the Emperor and his legions finally arrived on Barbarus, Mortarion had become a truly
resilient leader.
He had trained and hardened his people, arming them with crude breathing masks so they might
exact vengeance on those who for so long had acted with impunity.
Mortarion waged a campaign of extermination against the tyrants and warlords who persisted
in terrible mountain fortresses where the toxic clouds were thickest, until only one
remained.
But at the highest peak, the toxins were too much for Mortarion and when the last tyrant
of Barbarus was slain instead by the Emperor, the Primarch swore him his loyalty.
Mortarion was given command of the Dusk Raiders and the veterans of his long campaign across
Barbarus formed the new core of their ranks.
They were renamed in honor of those who had fought amongst the toxic clouds and now warred
across the galaxy as the Death Guard.
Mortarion brought his relentlessness to the legion and they quickly became masters of
not only enduring but claiming victory even in the harshest of environments.
Horus found Mortarion more difficult to bring to his cause than the other traitor Primarchs,
but eventually Mortarion was convinced that the Emperor had become a tyrant no better
than those who once ruled his homeworld.
In the opening battle of what would become the Horus Heresy, the Death Guard slaughtered
their fellow Space Marines, including a third of their own legion who remained loyal to
the Imperium.
The traitors carved their way across the Imperium, repeatedly engaging Jaghatai Khan and his
legion, the White Scars, for whom they developed a particular hatred.
When the Throneworld of the Imperium came under siege, the Death Guard were among the
traitor legions sent to take part in the ultimate defeat of the Emperor.
Mortarion had insisted on sacrificing his fleet’s navigators however, who he believed
were not entirely loyal.
Without their guidance, the Death Guard were left adrift in the Realm of Chaos, completely
at the mercy of the Dark Gods.
The legion’s skill in resisting even the harshest toxins attracted the attention of
Nurgle, the Chaos God of Plague, Pestilence, and Disease.
He blessed them with his gifts, which even their legendary resilience could not overcome.
The legion was transformed utterly, becoming an army of postulant grotesques, riddled with
corruption yet unable to die.
None suffered greater than Mortarion, now a nightmarish daemon lord who traded his soul
and the souls of all his sons in exchange for deliverance.
What emerged from the Warp to take part in the Battle of Terra bore little resemblance
to what had entered.
The last betrayed remnants of the Dusk Raiders were gone forever, in their place stood the
Plague Marines of the Death Guard.
When the Emperor slew Horus in orbit over Terra and the rebellion collapsed, the Death
Guard fell back to the Eye of Terror alongside the other traitor legions.
Barbarus was quickly destroyed by the vengeful Imperium, so deep within the Eye of Terror
the Death Guard set about creating their fallen world anew.
Their new homeworld is a dark reflection of Barbarus, wrapped in clouds of contagion home
to plague-ridden abominations that stalk rotting forests and putrid swamps.
At the dawn of the Legion, Mortarion and the Death Guard fought against the tyrants and
warlords who preyed on the weak, now they revel in the bitter irony that they have become
the very thing they sought to destroy.
They rule their new world from fortresses built atop the highest mountains, cloaked
in toxic fog that they alone possess the will to endure.
In the Millenia since the Horus Heresy, the Death Guard have emerged across the galaxy
to spread new plagues and epidemics of violence and decay before withdrawing once again into
the Warp.
Ever the traditionalist, Mortarion’s forces have remained relatively cohesive.
The Legion consists of 7 Plague Companies, each specializing in different aspects of
warfare.
The first of these is ruled by Typhus the Traveler, a Herald of Nurgle whose own visions
for the future have made him a rival of Mortarion himself.
Yet from the lowest, wheezing cultist to plague infested demonic engines, the Death Guard
spread ruin and decay so that their own terrible fate might seem less shameful by comparison.
Their belief that mankind should be free of oppression and hardship endured, with inner
strength and stern resolution twisted into contempt for the weak and timid.
The arrival of the Death Guard on the battlefield is marked by a buzzing drone that soon rises
to a deafening roar as billions of plague flies swarm across the desolation of No Man’s
Land.
From clouds of toxic fog, they emerge, eyes glowing with sickly light and blades dripping
with noxious poisons.
The torrent of revolting destruction they unleash overwhelms the enemy’s strength
and even those who might escape are riddled with incurable plagues and do nothing but
spread sickness and despair ever farther.
So have the sons of Mortarion conquered countless worlds in the name of the Plague God.
Join the Templin Institute in the grim darkness of the far future as we play some Battlefleet
Gothic Armada on our Twitch channel.
We’ll be going live immediately after this video is released but if you miss the stream
don’t worry.
You can catch our game alongside the rest of our past broadcasts on the Templin Archives
channel.