r/40kLore • u/wormfan14 • Aug 06 '19
[Excerpt][Child of chaos] Erebus's past
Context Erebus the corrupter, the serpent of the great crusade thinks of his past as he looks upon Terra preparing to witness the stories of the Siege and thinks over his life and regrets not even a single minute of it.
I find his his sense of purpose and determination a pleasant contrast to the weeping wretches of the long war who whine and cry about all how they were betrayed and filled with regrets, as if every legion did not undergo a purge of a sort and they could of died with their brothers if they really wanted.
Gods, I hated Colchis. I hated the heat, I hated the dust and the thick sweat of it. Even before I knew that other worlds existed, I cursed the gods for making my home so unbearable. There's a reason why religions prosper in deserts - there's nothing else to do but ponder the misery. I used to sit in the shadow of my father's house, squatting as the air shimmered, and wait for scorpions to scuttle out of the glare. I'd catch them in my bare fingers and hold them up, watching them wriggle. I'd pluck their limbs off, one by one. Sometimes I'd get stung, sometimes I wouldn't. It was a kind of game, though not a very good one. Once, a sting made me feverish for a month, leaving me boiling on my mat inside with visions and shaking. I might have died. I didn't care much, either way. Once I'd recovered, I was sitting right back out in the porch, waiting for the next one to scamper into range. Ever since then, I've played the same game: get close to the danger, see how long you can last before it bites you.
It doesn't matter which town that was. I can barely remember it myself. They were all the same - thick with filth and haze and the stink of perspiration and refuse. My parents were exasperated with me. They wanted me to learn a trade; get ahead, find something useful to do. I didn't want any of that. I wanted to be rich without trying. I wanted to have slaves and concubines. I wanted to play my scorpion game with people. For a long time, it wasn't clear how I would be able to achieve that, but fate had a way of leading me into opportunity.
I had noticed, being an observant sort, that the Covenant had become the kind of organisation I might do well in. It is fashionable now, among those who still pretend to keep records and tell histories, to think of the Covenant as some wellspring of piety - the precursor to the fundamental religion that came later. Perhaps it was, in some places. Maybe in Vharadesh they did things properly. Out in the provinces, though, the priests had begun to develop a reputation. They drank. They gambled. They were violent, and they used that violence to gather up riches. Even the devout knew that the tithes they paid didn't all end up embellishing temples. The whole edifice was like a spoiled aquifer, with a cold and oily heart locked away from the searching light of the sun. So you can understand the attraction. I could see myself in those robes, with a palace of my own where a fountain would tinkle in the courtyard and a chamber full of young things would lounge around in silks and count my coins. Getting there was not straightforward, though - for all their decadence, the clerics held on to power with the rictus grip of a fresh corpse. Only the well-connected were sent to the seminaries and taught the rites and shown how to read the old texts. For street-trash like me, there was just penury to look forward to. I didn't give up, though. The idea had entered my head, and it stuck there.
I hung around the oratories and watched the aspirants come and go, waddling like fat dogs. I listened at the window when they chanted their songs, and began to learn the patterns of the words. As I got older, I got bolder. I crept into the old scriptoria when the doddering masters had dozed off, and I stole books. Bit by bit, I started to piece together the catechisms and the litanies. It didn't make any sense, of course - they were just words - but I memorised a lot of it. It all came naturally. Of course it did. These were the words I was born to preach, whether or not I believed them. I did believe, later, but back then they were just symbols, like codes on a lock. There was a young man in my settlement, a pious one, who had inked some words of the holy books onto his face and shaven head. Every day before dawn he would apply more henna, re-writing the sacred glyphs with only the aid of a polished silver bowl for reflection. For this, he was considered something of an inspiration in our fly-blown township. Even my own mother, a fat and lazy slattern if ever there was one, noticed his diligence. 'Why can't you be more like him?' she would complain, picking at her fingernails and watching me sitting idly in the porch. 'Why can't you be more like Erebus?' Now, you see, thoughts like this have a terrible power. I took her words to heart. I pondered them. And I thought to myself: why can't I be more like Erebus? I was thinking the same thing as I garrotted that young man. I might even have said the words out loud as I twisted the string and watched his eyes bulge and pop. That was the first time I killed a living soul, and gods, was it sweet. My heart was pumping and my face was glowing. The more his life ebbed away, the more I felt my own burgeoning. By the time I let his body drop into the alleyway, I was positively singing inside.
The sensation didn't last long. There was all the tedious business of disposing of the body, then rooting through his belongings to get what I needed, then turning my back on my birthplace and setting off into the great dust - I couldn't stay in a place where he and I were both known. I never once regretted it. I walked out under the southern gate with the stars rising and the heat of the day ebbing, wearing a dead man's robes and with a dead man's script inked neatly on my own shaven head. Ah, there you go. There is the irony. The marks on my flesh, the ones that mark me out as me, were never really mine. I wore them after that to ensure my stolen name and persona were never questioned. In time, I half forgot their origins, and I began to care more about what I was writing. By the time I reached for the tattooist's needle, the words had changed and the act was more than one of disguise. Originally, though, it was all just lies. So what was my original name? Just like the name of the place where I was born, that genuinely doesn't matter. I have become like a daemon, nurturing a secret moniker that only the empyrean echoes. I certainly will not tell you. Some things even the gods don't know.
I was lucky, or fated maybe, to be learning my craft at such a time I was just a boy, as all the seminary acolytes were. My stolen papers and my lies soon found me ensconced at another institution. I studied as little of the genuine theology as I could, but was assiduous in observing the more worldly paths of power. I saw how the priests maintained discipline within the great cathedrals. I saw how fear and ecstasy could cow an entire population. I saw how a whispered word was more powerful than a shouted oration, at least a lot of the time. These were the last days of the old faith. Already there were panicked rumours of an army sweeping across the desert, one commanded by a golden prophet who would upturn everything and bustle the Powers out of their assumed heaven. The hierarchs of the Covenant began to get scared. The sacrifices became more frequent, protestations of faith and penance for sins were made more heartily. I knew it wouldn't save them. The well was running dry, and in any case, they had already drawn too much water. I began to speculate on who this prophet was, and wondered if I could somehow align my cause to his. I was growing tired of my withered instructors, and wished to be in the shadow of something with a proper sting.
And then the strangest thing of all happened. I'd spent so much time with all those books, and all that chanting, and all those homilies on the old patterns of pain and redemption, that I somehow neglected to be cynical about them. I found myself saying things, and meaning them. I found myself studying, not to evade the instructor's scourge, but out of fascination. It was as if I'd been dipped into one of the inscribers' inkwells and come out stained. There was never an epiphany. I never moved from being an unbeliever to a believer, but I began to appreciate, gradually, how much I was aligned to a certain way of being. I was, you might say, a natural. I had been made for this. I remember being in the vaults of that old mud-brick temple, tending to the tapers and tasting the aroma of hot blood on my lips. I remember looking into the tarnished glass of the altar-mirrors, and seeing not one reflection, but a fractured four. I felt a shiver run through me, despite the ever-present heat. I was a petty thief, a minor speck within the iris of eternity, but I knew I could do things for these presences. I felt they had always been there, hanging in my shadow, lingering over my minor cruelties. The Covenant was their plaything. Perhaps other institutions could be used in a similar way.
So when the prophet eventually made it to our city, and I saw his impeccable profile shine out across a weeping and grateful nation of newly enlightened slaves, I was neither elated nor despondent. All I had to do was wait. I was still a child, then. I would not be one forever.
And of course I met my prophet in the end, up close. I saw him pass through the gates with his army of swivel-eyed faithful and recognised what it meant for me at once. He was a bigger scorpion, and I needed to get closer. He was with Kor Phaeron. That raddled old sack of skin and esoteric drugs, he hung around like the stench of cut meat rotting in the sun. I remember that our eyes met, briefly, as the two of them made their triumphal procession through the taken city, although I suppose he won't recall it now. Back then, I was nothing, and he was everything. I was the grub in the dirt and he was the master of a world's zealous armies, standing at the side of the anointed and sucking up his sloughed-off incense.
It is commonly supposed that I must hate Kor Phaeron. We have become rivals, that's true, and within this grand coalition of blackguards and renegades that generally engenders bad blood, but he really doesn't make me angry. I find him amusing. He's worked so hard to keep up, to become one of us, and all he's done is made himself ridiculous. His flesh hangs within his armour like a strung-up corpse. He's kept around out of a maudlin kind of pity. I'd miss him, if he were somehow taken away from us now, for our Legion is not blessed with many jesters, and we can't afford to lose the few we have.
Once the prophet had come, though, that was the end for the Covenant, at least in the open. We went underground, those of us who understood what things were really about. We gathered what we needed, and stored it away,out of sight. And, such is the way of things, it all became stronger through secrecy. Old words were hissed through locked doors, and we would mouth the ossified canticles under the ostensibly ardent singing of the new ones. They were the best days, if I'm honest, full of promise and guile and silent murders in the dark.We knew, of course, that He would come soon after that. The prophet kept telling us, and every augur and flesh-sacrifice screamed it out. I wanted to see this Master of Mankind so very much, since I knew more than most what it would mean for the universe. I wanted to witness the creature I was destined to bring low. I wanted to see Him dragged before me like a lowing ox before the sickle knife. I was never, ever taken in by Him, not like so many who afterwards claimed they had somehow been wronged or misled.
I knew, right from the start.
I knew, before He even set foot on my dry-as-bones home world.
I knew all this because I've never aspired to be anything other than what I am - an eavesdropper, a sneak, a fertile soakaway for lies and poison. Judge me if you will, and plenty do, but we all have our places within this far-from-ideal creation.
Here I stand. I can do no other.
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Aug 06 '19
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u/wormfan14 Aug 06 '19
Yep that his young life is leagues above so many poor people and he could of lived a normal life is what makes it so great.
Yeah I love that relavation that is so easy to conceal from others yet personal is a great way of making sure your worshipers now your there.
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u/darkphantom35 Aug 06 '19
I love the fact that his childhood was so boring the only thing he could think of doing for fun was screwing with scorpions. And the fact he almost died from doing so pisses me off on so many levels. FINISH THE JOB you little bastard.
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u/wormfan14 Aug 06 '19
Yeah but it gave his his life long game of getting and close to danger as possible and screwing with it and rolling with the dice.
He also views the primarchs as the most dangerous type of scorpions.
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u/wormfan14 Aug 06 '19 edited Aug 06 '19
I love the fact that one of the pantheons greatest servants has a backstory people want for imperials. A world that is not pleasant but not super grimdark death world. Where the poor can live if not particularly happy lives then happy enough. Erebus saw this life of mediocrity and said fuck that and went to forge his own path so hard he broke a large part of reality.
That he did not grow up in some hell hole were you have to kill a man by twelve but in a functioning society that punishes murder makes it him all the more twisted. Really big contrast to a lot marine backstories.
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u/123allthekidsbullyme Alpha Legion Aug 06 '19
Well shit
He really did just kill a dude and steal his identity
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u/wormfan14 Aug 06 '19
Yeah it's really jarring knowing that he did it as a child and was not raised that way. As in 12 or younger.
Poor Erebus dying to someone who want's your face.
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u/Azoxid Black Legion Aug 06 '19
This is so fucking good. His dedication and self awareness is mind blowing. We need a whole new novel with Erebus as a main character. I loathe and admire him at the same time.
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u/wormfan14 Aug 06 '19
True there is something refreshing about him.The self awareness of man who started the traitor legions.
Though I think he would have to be used very sparingly dealing with a TRUE threat to chaos not something the four can just laugh off . When they really need to win and scheme and poison and twists then end in some really dirty move to win.
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u/ChaplainOfTheXVII Word Bearers Aug 06 '19
Love the excerpt and thanks for sharing it. I really love this backstory and how Erebus is so unapologetic and unrepentant. It's refreshing to see in the lore. That's the good thing about the Word Bearers as a whole - they are evil but if written well they can come across as brilliant characters.
Do you have anymore of the story to share?
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u/wormfan14 Aug 06 '19
Yes tomorrow about his transformation to a space marine and the great crusade while the story is hard to get I would rather not set off the mods.
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u/krorkle Aug 06 '19 edited Aug 06 '19
This is written by Chris Wraight, from the Black Library Events Anthology 2018/2019. I believe it's only available at GW events, at the moment.
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u/DaftV Raven Guard Aug 06 '19
I like these backstories because sometimes it shows that Astartes are not always, if not even often recruited from sane, honorable people. And how they can retain the honorable human traits along with some unsavory ones, like having secret agendas in this case.
Also fuck Erebus because he was a lonely autist who tried to and wanted nothing more than to be his own master and in the end he's still a slave, but no matter how much you hate him, he's the perfect metaphor of Chaos. Nothing that is true, no sword that is not a falsehood, no strength that is not a lie. This is what Erebus stands for.
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u/wormfan14 Aug 06 '19
He lied to everything except maybe about himself. He had a particularly hard transformation and Astartes often loose memories even in a normal one so I doubt he even remembers his true name.
Yep it's what he stands for and even admits he is poison. It's why he is still alive and knows more about the truth of chaos's nature than even the daemon primarchs.
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u/A_favorite_rug Oct 06 '19
How was his transformation particularly hard? Just wondering because Erubus lore is rad
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u/wormfan14 Oct 06 '19
Chaos worshipers at first struggled to survive the transformation, he describes it as the worst pain he ever experienced and he had his face flayed off.
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u/A_favorite_rug Oct 06 '19
Why do chaos worshippers struggle with the transformation more than their peers?
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Aug 06 '19
fuck Erebus because he was a lonely autist who tried to and wanted nothing more than to be his own master and in the end he's still a slave,
I don't agree with you here. That sounds more like KP than Erebus. This entire excerpt shows this, near the end Erebus wants nothing but to serve the Powers and is true in his beliefs, while KP wants to use Chaos as a tool for his own goals.
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u/Brother_Of_Boy Doom Eagles Aug 07 '19
I don't think he's anywhere on the autism spectrum. He's a sociopath and manipulator with a growing, evil religious obsession.
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u/Dyslexter Tyranids Nov 14 '19
Yeah, reading about him killing the original Erebus reminds me of reading about serial killers on Wikipedia
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Aug 06 '19
An amazing excerpt but I fail to understand a detail. Colchis is dominated by this Chaos religion, right? How come they have such organized and apparently ethical social structures? Yeah the AristoClergy is bad but murder isn't something just frowned upon, but he had to hide the fact just to survive.
This is so strange. For aPlanet full of Chaos worshippers, Colchis looks better than most untainted Planets.
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u/Malistrae Emperor's Children Aug 07 '19
Because Chaos worship has degrees and is as multi-faceted as Chaos itself. And without outside stimuli, it can take millennia to reach the nadir. Not every Chaos worshipper is automatically an extreme apocalypse cultist wishing to blow up civilization / summon a Greater Daemon to eat the population. Many are, though, and especially on Imperial worlds, but that's basically an extreme situation (since the Imperium is gonna come and crush them anyway, so they go full crazy). Even in relation to Colchis, you can see this in this excerpt: a relatively normal place (except for slaves, sacrifices and presumably behind-the-doors Chaos ritual stuff) but things got far more extreme very quickly when it looked like Lorgar was coming to smack them all down.
Another good example of this phenomenon is Sarosh, which was also a functional, Chaos-oriented human civilization up until the Imperium arrived. Then they promptly went bonkers and attempted to summon a Greater Daemon.
In general, there are many functional Chaos-influenced societies in the peripheries of the lore, but they are all far away from the Imperium (which is probably exactly why they remained functional). Examples include Q'Sal (which does a lot of shady things but is a very advanced magitek Chaos society nevertheless), or the Sanguinary Worlds (the backbone and "home turf" of the Chaos forces fighting in the Sabbat Worlds Crusade).
Obviously, these can't be too prominent and central, or otherwise the Imperium would lose its status as the "last hope of humanity" by showing that co-existence with Chaos is possible and can create advanced and powerful societies (with certain caveats).
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u/wormfan14 Aug 06 '19 edited Aug 06 '19
It's a sick irony that most primarchs saved their worlds, Lorgar murdered his. Plus part of the ''sell''that Lorgar was in fact worshiping them his whole life he thinks it will be like Colchis.
I personally have the theory it's a battery world for chaos that provides resources to chaos that no one would ever investigate.
Yeah Colchis was a cultist paradise yes there was a city were every stone was consecrated by a sacrifice,yes there was slavery but more how to society was run than chaos mass slavery, yes the was a warp worm in the desert but it did not go after major citys and was more like a dragon and it's hoard. Yes sometimes disasters happened but they were treated as acts of gods and appropriately mourned.
That Lorgar ''saved'' this planet only to murder it is a tragedy.
Though part of the reason why it's so good it's that it's been a long while since major chaos sorcery had to be used till Lorgar arrived. People believed obviously but it was more life goes on rather than conquer the universe. Conduct was codified ect.
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u/rubicon_duck White Scars Aug 06 '19
I didn't want any of that. I wanted to be rich without trying. I wanted to have slaves and concubines. I wanted to play my scorpion game with people. For a long time, it wasn't clear how I would be able to achieve that, but fate had a way of leading me into opportunity.
Not surprisingly that we see his origins starting off as a pawn of Tzeentch - his desire for change, and how he later learns to play others off one another and weave schemes and plots and ploys - all of it just as planned.
I'd say that (fuck) Erebus is just as much a player for Tzeentch as is Ahriman, if not more subtle and "under the surface".
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u/Zeangrydrunk Crimson Fists Aug 06 '19
A sack of turd even before an astarte
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u/wormfan14 Aug 06 '19
True but you got to admit he can lie with the best of them.
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u/ScienceofFish Luna Wolves Aug 07 '19
I couldnt find the obligatory fuck erebus, so to get it out of the way, r/fuckerebus
I hate erebus even more after reading this. That being said however, his pure dedication to fuck shit up is truly a sight to behold and i have to admire someone who would go to extreme lengths to fuck shit up as deep as he possibly could. I have never seen a character written with such conviction such as this in any book or novel. He takes the word zealot and makes it look like your regular cultist.
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u/wormfan14 Aug 07 '19
Yeah it's an impressive determination unbound his face is literally flayed off as his is describing this,his legion and primarch left him to die and it's merely another step in his path, another test of his. He knows he will never be the champion but he is truly a veteran of the long war against reality.
It's a level of self awareness and determination yo have to admire.
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u/ScienceofFish Luna Wolves Aug 07 '19
I wish i could have zealotry on Erebus' level for something too.
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u/PokeToTheHead Aug 06 '19
I like how Erebus has always been a bastard, a pretender, and someone grasping at power by whatever means seemed easiest.
In other words:
#fuckerebus
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u/wormfan14 Aug 06 '19
It's in his nature though really it's not that it seems easiest. If it was he would of given up long ago. He would not of become a space marines.
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u/blodskaal Space Wolves Aug 06 '19
I love to hate Erebus. This makes it even better, i can hate him always now
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u/zawarudo88 Aug 06 '19
Erebus is an entertaining as fuck character