Okay, I think I'm finished... Whew! Took me long enough; and sorry but I didn't include an army! -_-
P.S. mattmanganon: if you'd like to work out any sort of collaborative part of our back-stories (Leonothas was originally a Space Wolf), feel free to let me know!
Title: The Siphon of Blood
Name: Leonothas Kargan, the Red Wolf
Appearance: Standing nearly seven and a half feet tall, his body is a hulking mass of bulging muscles with long, powerful limbs and thick hands that could easily crush a man's skull with minimal effort. The nails of his finger have grown rather large and dark, each forming into a sharp point. They bear a striking resemblance to claws. His skin is a light olive and is covered in thick patches of coarse black hair; around his chest, back, arms, and hands especially; though recently areas of hard red-brown scales have begun to appear on the base of his neck and around his shoulders and thighs. His scalp is the only part of his body that is hairless, though dozens of outdated implant cables meant to connect to his power armor and similar interfaces almost give him the appearance of having silver dreadlocks. Thick jagged eyebrows are angled over his bright golden eyes and his thin-lipped mouth, which droops at the edges to form a perpetual grimace, is filled with several sharpened fangs.
In his power armor, his physique becomes all the more terrifying. Giant plates of jagged red and black metal adorn his body, each outlined in rusted, stained brass. Upon his shoulders and his knee plates is the terrifying symbol of his chapter: the circle of chaos becoming an inhuman fanged maw that is closing upon an indistinct world. Twisted metal spikes line his jump-pack and each of his forearms is wrapped in thick metal chain that extends around his weapons of battle; a simple, but effective way to make sure they are not lost when the blood rage fills his mind.
Equipment/Weapons Loadout: Mark VI Veteran Power Armor, Valkyris Pattern Jump Pack, Umbra-Pattern Bolt Pistol, Corrupted Frost Blade:
Khornesgrin.
All equipment was ‘stolen’ from the Space Wolves Chapter and have thus become tainted by the ruinous powers, in particular the chain sword. It was once known as
‘Wintermaw’, a relic Frost Blade made of an ancient alloy decorated in icy blue power runes made from energy crystal that glowed with power and fitted with the teeth of a Fenrisian Ice Kraken. Its hilt was formed into a wolf’s head, large jaw seeming to bear the blade between its fangs. Truly, it was a prized weapon of the Space Wolves and was thus bestowed upon Leonothas with great honors.
It has since succumbed to the dark blood rituals of Chaos: the teeth and runes of the weapon now bare a sinister crimson glow and the wolf’s head hilt has lost its noble air, becoming a fierce and feral creature with slathering mouth hanging open in twisted rage. When used in combat, one would swear it drips with vile spittle as if the weapon itself craves blood and flesh.
Psychological Profile: When out of combat, Leonothas is surprisingly calm and collected; a shrewd commander and cunning tactician. He rarely displays emotion besides annoyance or anger and looks to those he determines to be ‘weak’ with disdain, while simultaneously hating those who prey on such weakness. This air of a noble and honorable warrior is often shaken, however, when he becomes inflicted by vivid hallucinations of people from his past: usually his dead wife and son. Unable to tell the difference between them and reality, their presence is a powerful corrupting influence on his mind and sanity. In his more controlled times, he believes that through a warriors death he can someday join them within the Blood God and so seeks to best as many warriors as possible.
”You say that my God is one of murder… of war… of death incarnate… Yet I say he a God of life, for all that truly lives can bleed and that blood is precious to them. It is precious to Him also. He holds the blood of my family, now, and someday he will hold mine as well. Until then… you will make a worthy sacrifice.”When battle is joined, an entirely different side of Leonothas is shown: one of pure bestial fury and rage, of red-hot burning hatred for any and all things, and a sadistic joy in the sight of the spray of blood. Hallucinations and delusions run rampant as the monstrous warrior cuts a swath through anything that is foolish enough to stand before him, becoming stronger and stronger the longer combat lasts. Even his own warriors know better than to approach Leonothas when he falls into such a way for they are well aware that his murderous intent will only abate when no more victims are left breathing.
”Hack! Slash! Burn! Bleed! Kill them all, leave none standing! KILL! KILL! KILL!”Brief Biography:
Like all other Space Wolves before him, Leonothas was born on Fenris to a small outlying tribe of nomad hunter-gatherers. He was strong in his youth; a capable hunter, though never a warrior, and much loved by his people. There was a time when he was disappointed that the ‘Sky Warriors’ never saw fit to choose him for their ranks, but that quickly passed as the task of surviving the harsh and unforgiving world was ever present. At 16 he married the love of his life, a girl from a neighboring friendly tribe, and within two years she bore him a son.
It was the happiest time of his life, but was doomed to end in blood.
In 958.M41, Fenris was infiltrated by a cult of Khorne and several of the Fenrisian tribes succumbed to its dark influence. One such tribe, led by the cultist who’d instigated the planet’s ‘conversion’, sought to make a worthy sacrifice to their new god and so descended upon Leonothas’ tribe in the dead of night. The smaller group of nomads put up a noble fight but was clearly pit in a losing battle and in the heat of it all Leonothas’ wife and son were slain right before the man's eyes. This sent the warrior into a rage and he cut a bloody swath through the enemy; personally lopping the head off the cultist leader. Just before the remaining tribesmen descended upon him the great scream of jump packs filled the air and much to everyone’s amazement and fear a squadron of Sky Warriors was in their midst. The Space Wolves had been well aware of the cult spreading upon their home and had been monitoring the behavior of each tribe from their Fortress Monetary. Wars between the tribals were not uncommon, but this particular conflict came from no apparent blood feud or territory war and so immediately caught their suspicion. Preparing their forces from the shadows, they sought to use the small tribe as a distraction until the leader revealed himself, though they had been too slow to reach him before Leonothas did. Within a matter of minutes the Space Marines had slaughtered the corrupted tribe to the last man.
Though most Chapter recruits were taken at an earlier age, they looked favorably upon Leonothas for his display in battle and so took him with them to the Monestary to both question him regarding the cult and to put him into the next group of recruits, should he pass the psyker's interrogation. He trained for 3 years as a recruit and through sheer force of will he survived their trials and their augmentations, all the while being harshly indoctrinated with the ideals of one who ‘serves the God Emperor and mankind’. Before long, all memory of his previous life had vanished and he found himself a fierce and honorable Space Marine of the Space Wolves Chapter.
For over 30 years he served on the front lines of the Chapter, distinguishing himself for his fearlessness, his battle lust, and his skills in close-range combat and was eventually promoted into the Skyclaws as the leader of an assault squad. Here his accolades only grew as he gained victory of victory against the enemies of man, even having the relic Frost Blade ’Wintermaw’ bestowed upon him. Near the end of the millennium, he found himself in Cadia as part of the Chapter battlegroup defending the sector. Leading the defenders of Korolis, a massive Industrial world charged with producing some of the Imperium's most powerful weapons, Leonothas found himself facing a dreaded invasion force during the 13th Black Crusade when Abaddon's forced pushed through the Eye of Terror. The fighting was some of the most intense ever seen by any space marine, block for block and building for building, and in one of the climactic battles the commander found himself separated from his unit and injured by the round of a chaos bolter. He would likely have perished there on the street if not for the aid of a kind civilian who, with the help of her family, took him into hiding. He was amazed at the mortal’s bravery and something about her appearance gave him pause, though he knew not what it was. After a time, he was nursed back to health and was able to rejoin his battle brothers, leading a heroic counter-attack that sent the enemy running. His elation at this victory was short lived, however, when the Chapter order came down that they were to evacuate the planet and leave the populace. Leonothas fiercely protested, thinking of the woman who had saved him, saying that billions of innocent lives would be lost and that if they were only able to attack the enemy head on they would surely emerge victorious. The order was final, as command saw the planet's resources too valuable to fall into enemy hands: the entire world would be obliterated by the waiting Imperial fleet.
As the majority of his forces were being pulled out, Leonothas disobeyed a direct order and led a small squad of volunteers back to the planet’s surface, hoping to reach the planetary comm. system center and announce the planet-wide evacuation. Fighting from street corner to street corner, they stopped to rescue the family that had saved Leonothas and eventually made it to the station, barricading themselves inside. Before the announcement could be made however, the orbital cleansing began and the honorable Space Marine knew that they would soon die as the bombardment split the planet. They would become a justifiable sacrifice for the Imperium's cowardice. It was at that moment that Abbaddon’s ritual was completed on Cadia, several planets away, and the entire system began to rupture as the Eye of Terror expanded, engulfing everything in its path. The fire from the Imperial dreadnoughts ceased as the new warp storm cracked them open giving Leonothas time to look down to the woman who he’d been shielding with his massive frame. She was already dead, as were all those he'd tried to save; their weaker body having been broken by the concussive force of the explosions. In that moment of grief, the greater part of his Space Marine indoctrination failed and his memory lock came undone as the scenes of his past life came rushing back to him. He suddenly realized why this particular woman felt so important to him: she was a spitting image of the wife he had lost long ago. For the second time, the Emperor had betrayed him and let those he cared for die out of simple cowardice.
If the Sky Warriors had only fought back on Fenris, his wife might still be alive. If the Imperium had only fought on Korolis, this innocent woman might still be alive.
This loss broke his mind and he flew into a blinding rage just as the forces of Chaos finally regrouped and descended upon the station. He slaughtered them as they came; wave after wave of chaos marine, cultist, and demon; until his blue-grey armor was stained red and dripped blood with every step. After what seemed an eternity, they finally overwhelmed him through sheer force of numbers. Had these foes been ‘normal’ heretics they might have slain him right then and there, making him a worthy sacrifice, but these were ’World Eaters’ and they valued anyone who could fight with such bloodlust and please their foul master. "Khorne cares not from where the blood is spilled." For the second time in his life, he was taken from a pile of his enemy’s corpses and given a new life; only this time he needed no brutal indoctrination nor the wiping of his memory so that he could serve some false, uncaring Emperor. From that day onward, Leonothas’ sole purpose was revenge against the weak and cowardly Imperium that had no right to lord over mankind.
The Chaos Legion took him into the storm and taught him the ways of their Lord, the one who sits upon the great Skull Throne and who welcomes all blood spilled in His name. Somewhere in those great seas of red was the life-force of his wife and child and Leonothas was determined to join with them there. But not yet, for first the universe was to be set right and the wicked were to receive their punishment. He emerged from the Warp a changed being and along with his new brothers they set course for the nearest Imperium battle-zone. Only the strong rule the World Eaters, and Leonothas proved that strength a thousand times over in every battle he joined and as his fearsome rage and bloodlust grew, so too did the number of red and brass armored warriors that followed behind him. The Red Wolf, they called him, and even among the ranks of the foulest demon and heretic they spoke it in fear and awe. His battle-group went with the flow of war, from one planet to the next, until finally the planet ‘Vigil’ fell within their sights.