Whispering Lord, Thirteen

Male

Udan

Calculating, mercurial, and suspicious, Yerleg finds there to be no action by another which is not predicated upon gaining something in return. All things have a motive built upon self-interest and the more charitable an act is, the more beloved one emphasizes upon the action, the more insidious that self-feeding motive is. He believes that the Imperium, as a whole, is a flawed creation built by a flawed master - the Emperor of Man, after all, cannot be a perfect being because were he so his sons would not have been scattered, his Imperium would not be so misshapen, his politics would not be so teetering. As such, all things therein must be questioned, never accepted without pause, and though all things should be worked to be improved upon it is never a guarantee. His preference to do so, of course, is by replacement, by cleansing the upper cadres, by reeducation of those expected to step into the empty shoes.

Assassination, Saboteur, Torture, Puppeteer

Mortis - Transonic Blade of Udan origin
Hymn - Archaeotech Pistol
Panoply of the Shadow - Mark IV power armor with cameleoline painted plates, conversion field,

Born, kept, and dispersed the same as his brothers, Yerleg Khan would hurtle along until he found the distant world of Udan. A hive world of immense proportions, covering the vast majority of the planetary surface save for the terrariums and factory-farms, he would fall past most of it to the lower levels of the hives. The gestation pod would be pried open by a group of the least afraid gangers hoping for some bit of tech or another to sell. What they found instead was a child, albeit a strangely healthy one for such a place, and the enticing thought of meat grew on the ganger’s minds. A life of strange sludge, fungi, and other packaged substances amplified the urge, as well as the mantra that one grew by what one ate.

It came as a surprise to all onlookers when the one onlooker drew forth, dispersing those jackals with a look and taking the child enclosed within. That was one of the underhive warlords with gangs arrayed beneath him, a man of great age, cruelty, and cunning, a man of foresight and who knew that such a thing did not come often or without reason. He took Yerleg in as his son and pupil, naming him such and teaching him the ways of rule in the underhives while the nobility above sought to find where the strange object had landed. It became apparent enough to the warlord that the child was gifted not only mentally but in the arts of assassination too, a strange enough thing as time passed and it grew obvious that the boy would outgrow any who were once his equal in size. He learned quickly from the assassins that the warlord played host to, becoming an instrument of silent death on Udan.

A creeping realization came on Yerleg as time passed, though, that the warlord did not intend to grant any more than had been given. A cold logic fell over the child, that the warlord gained much by his hand but mismanaged all of it, failed to appreciate it, and a hunger had implanted itself firmly in Yerleg. He knew he could do more and was determined to make it so. A few years of preparation passed, deaths and whispers delivered wherever needed, and the underhives exploded in the most planned manner they ever had before or since. The warlord and his rivals fell, either by one-another’s works or by Yerleg’s own hands, and by the end of it he had seized the reins of power there all for himself. Of course, another sat on that throne who knew his role, but the result was all the same.

The following works came like a bloody tide over the world, an occurrence even the nobility in their high towers could not miss and yet were helpless to halt or influence. His rivals fell like chaff, one after another after another. Some became embroiled in fierce infighting, their forces along one avenue suddenly weak from a lack of reliable munitions or clean water, while others fell victim to the infrastructure itself. Three districts drowned in toxic sludge removed several opponents in the grand scheme, and similar events claimed even more. By the end of the year, the underworld had largely been cleansed of its biggest players and those who remained swore fealty to another.

Yerleg emerged to the nobility, then, and gave an accounting of himself. The underhives were his, the vast majority of the world, and by their failure to being those same districts to heel they had declared themselves unfit. As such, he would be best for the world and he alone. They refused, though, unwilling to give power to the upstart, the nobody, the nothing, and Yerleg smiled. He left the high spires and bore himself to work delivering the good news to those nobility. For months, nothing occurred in their eyes. The trade ships to their close colonies came and went, delivering foodstuffs and leaving with manufactured goods. Nothing else came, nothing else went. The underhives were gnawingly quiet, save for as much violence as they always had bore. It ate at the nobles such that they sent spies down again and again, though no message returned from these nor did any of them ever return themselves.

When the moment came, those same close colonies delivered news of their rebellion. They had learned of how weak Udan had become, so weak that they could not even give control over their own planet, and wished better deals than they had ever fought for before. Shipments from those worlds ceased just as the transport lines from the terrariums and factory-farms failed, food to the upper spires ceasing. The few planetary defense vessels could not be spared to send, and even then it wasn’t even known if they could make the journey to those colonial holdings. The nobles were paralyzed, save for those few who felt that they knew what had to be done.

House guards and levies from the highest spires, citizen-soldiers who had grown in hatred of those below who thought they could rise above, attempted an invasion and cleansing of the underhives the likes of which Udan had never seen. The districts erupted in destruction and vicious house-to-house fighting became the standard of the day. Among it all, Yerleg was seldom to be fought, his captains down below following the master scheme out of the realization for how desperate their situation truly was. Few locations grew safe for the nobles who had spearheaded this attempt though, from fuel tank detonations to fires to floods, and by the end of the first day most were dead. By the end of the first week, they were all dead. Their lines of retreat cut away, the invaders were defeated one by one in their pockets, surrounded by filth and flooded districts, and Yerleg went once again to the nobility to appear among them amid one desperate meeting.

He gave a chance, yet again, and the nobles in that senate house begged for a mercy they were sure would not come. Yerleg killed each and every one, allowing the infantile heirs to survive under his own tutilage, and called forward that meeting with the colonies. Yerleg’s approach to these was simple, that if they did come together they would die alone and he would seize what remained of their worlds, that their rebellion was not solely of their own making, that those who called him master were already within their ranks. The colonial governments, fearful of the new unknown and wary that such a person could rise from the underhives to become ruler of such in so short a time, relented.

For a decade, it was good. The underhives knew an age of iron peace enforced by anonymous eyes everywhere, of a monolith known as Justice whose hand fell as need be, and the high spires knew an age of bridled progress and competence, of waste-not hierarchies and fools disappearing from the edge of the earth. Fear abided most all. There was construction, true, but Yerleg’s bloody revolution had done so much damage that it was difficult to restore what had been forever lost. Then a golden ship came, a stranger from the stars. They spoke and, when all was said and done, Yerleg left Udan for the stars. He still did not fully trust this man who claimed to be a father, yet had not reached out a hand ever in his youth as a father might, but did know that such extraordinary stories would provide an explanation for his skill, his capability, his biology.

He left Udan for his Legion, finding them as nothing more than violence and blood, savage killers who took worlds again and again and again with not a thought for what the worlds would be after. He found them lacking and it enraged him. The Legion Master and his Captains were flayed for their failures to become something more, to be satisfied with the lot in life of death and death and death again, flayed and displayed for their successors to see. He withdrew his Legion, known then as the Kings of Slaughter, and began to retrain them in his eyes. Yerleg soon enough separated the wheat from the chaff, the teachable from the mindless, and the latter he dispatched to the Imperium’s bloodiest campaigns. The former he taught for the shadows, for the discrete strike, for the kill another would take and the blood would never even reach their hands.

When his teachings were done, the Kings of Slaughter were dead and gone, the Death Masks rising from that grave. They soon embarked on pacification campaigns against the enemies of the Imperium, against the enemies of the Legion, against the enemies of Yerleg, and those three were never entirely the same. Upon learning of the Assassin Cults controlled by Terra, the Officio Assassinorum, the Primarch decided that no order controlled by such would have a card above he. He garnered a number of requests to the Officio, subtle enough that the few would ever know, to secure a limited amount of the substance. The finest chemists who could be sourced away were secreted into disappearance as well, their genius replicating the substance, providing the Legion its own source of shifting agents after decades of work.

Of Yerleg himself, though, he has rarely been seen among either his brothers or among the Legion’s front lines - were the Death Masks ever to truly have a front line. No Legionary there claims knowledge of his whereabouts, nor would they often reveal their own names to another outside the Legion.

XIII

Udan and associated colonies (Tamag, Ulukayın)

With their armor painted deep teal with black shoulders and helmets, Death Mask Legionaries rarely bear obvious outward signs of their formations or identifications. Markings of veteran status on the armor is restricted, such as campaigns fought or kills, and removal of the helmet by a Death Mask among those not of the Legion is forbidden. For identification to others within the Legion, such things as discrete signs and countersigns, pronouncement of certain words, and rhythmic tics such as tapping against the armor in a certain stattaco are all used when the helmet-aided notifications fail.

Infiltration, Covert Operations, Independent Operatives

Total: 80,000 Astartes
Primarch
40 Grand Companies (2,000 Astartes) - Lord Captain

OperativesSaboteur ConsulsKormos

Roughly standard for the Legiones Astartes, the Thirteenth does stock inordinate numbers of Cameleoline cloaks and nets, as well as Vox signals intercept gear, jamming equipment, and a large number of Servo Skulls for the purposes of situational awareness and reconnaissance. Their Power Armor is often altered and improved for stealth purposes, despite the seeming age of these. Bolters among the Death Masks are often loaded with heavy armor-piercing bolts intended to slice through enemy armor and shells, destroying vital parts simply by their travel, or loaded with delayed detonation bolts.

Standard for the Legiones Astartes, the Thirteenth Legion employs its armor often in an independent role to other forces as an applicator of pressure against the enemy command scheme, forcing them to react to such while other Legion assets move into place. They are often employed piecemeal, with electronic systems generating the signature a far greater bulk of forces than otherwise. Deployments into combat itself, however, do often occur alongside the drop-pods of the Legion.

Notable Vessels:The Thirteenth operates a number of independently operating cruisers and heavy Battle Barges, often forming these into sudden concentrations against vulnerable targets before dispersing along several vectors. Their smallest vessels, however, are known to act as deployment methods for Saboteur Consuls on worlds further within enemy space, rapidly entering and exiting the system on often minimal power to avoid detection.

Oblique SeatStarlit Key

Originally the Kings of Slaughter, a Legion that held little in comparison to their gene-father, the Thirteenth embraced the violent rush, the charge, the bloody cleansing of worlds that would eventually go to the Imperium. Under that moniker they won many victories for the Imperium, but their name was never among those celebrated by Terra, nor did they give parades and examples for the people to gawk at upon the edges of the Imperium. The Imperial Army were loathe to work alongside the Thirteenth, so concerned were they for their own safety in the midst of the battle.

Then, one year, it all stopped. The Kings of Slaughter seemed suddenly diminished in number yet they rushed to the most vile campaigns the Imperium could offer them. They fought again and again until there were so few of them left that it seemed the Legion might die out in a mess of its own making. Then, without warning as well, the Death Masks arose in their place and a great noise was made among the highest of Terra’s nobility that the Thirteenth Son had been found.

Since then, the Death Masks have been engaged along the peripheral line of the Imperium on many campaigns, though rarely is it in one place for long.