Revision as of 08:56, 7 November 2015

Remembrancer portrait of Captain Tiberius Thanatos, Late Great Crusade

"Go and slaughter, sons of the Merciless. Let there be war."
- Captain Tiberius Thanatos of the World Eaters, Before the Atrocity of Isstvan III

Captain Tiberius Thanatos commanded the World Eaters 16th Great Company (L-XII-1884) during the times of the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy. A Terran Born veteran once known for his unmatched skills as a void commander, he was among the first to volunteer as a test for the Butcher's Nails soon to become widespread within the Legion. Unfortunately his implants were a particularly strong device and degenerated sooner than expected: after the battle for Isstvan V they had already eroded much of the man he was, allowing him only glimpses of the leader his men were used to and turning him into a colder, killing addicted monster who gladly broke his former self on the same anvil that twisted his father, and would do so again even knowingly.

History

Great Crusade

“Aye. I too witnessed the glorious days of the Warhounds. I lived them all, one by one. And not a single day has passed since then where I did not thank my Primarch for making me a World Eater”
- Tiberius to Irex Nornas, Legate Commander of the Merciless

First born son of a Terran tech-barbarian warlord, Tiberius Thanatos was taken as a tribute and recruited in the Emperor's 12th Legion after his father was cast into submission at the end of the Unification Wars. He swiftfully emerged from the ranks, being the exact kind of officer the twelfth needed at the time: a brutal, cunning but noble leader driven by his own pragmatic honor code, as he had been raised up to be when he was meant to inherit the mantle of command in his tribe. When the 16th Company's Centurion died in the Siege of Hierotzelem, Tiberius won command over the Merciless by defeating every other pretendant in the ritual fights that followed: not yet satisfied, he also challenged those of the other two companies attached to the 32nd expedition along with the 16th, who too had lost their respective Centurions during the Siege. Bending or killing every opponent, Thanatos found himself alone to command a battleship and -at full strenght- three hundred Astartes, a position that would later be confirmed with a laughter of approval by the Primarch Angron. In the following years he proved himself a skilled void commander and a warm brother for all of the 12th Legion, respected for his insight and martial sense of humor as well as for his physical resilience and hand-to hand skills, but he was never animated by the same fervour some of his brothers had towards the Emperor of Mankind. To Tiberius he was a distant, brutal tyrant who destroyed the life he was meant to live and whom he was forced to serve by lack of choices. This is why when Angron came to the Legion with his tragic story and his bloody warrior code he was seen by Thanatos as a similar soul to him, and easily won his loyalty over that for the Emperor. In Angron, Thanatos found a true leader to follow and someone he would gladly fight for: such was Tiberius' devotion to his genesire that he was among the first to volunteer as a test for the cortical implants soon to become widespread within the Legion. The Conqueror's Apothecarion was nowhere near creating a stable, final product at the time, and as it would soon turn out, Tiberius' implants were too similar to those of his Primarch. Too strong even for an Astartes to endure, they soon took away the best from him -but he resisted them for long, stoic, functioning as best as he could as a leader for his men and never regretting this act of devotion to his genesire.

Horus Heresy

Isstvan III
Given Tiberius' admiration for his Primarch, it comes to no surprise that he sided with him in the grim events that would come to be known as “The Horus Heresy”. The Captain had to personally choose those of his warriors who would be part of the initial assault to Isstvan III, and thus be betrayed and condamned to die under the virus bombs of their own fleet. Ever obedient and loyal to Angron, he chose almost seventy Astartes and put Irex Nornas in charge of this spearhead. Nornas was Tiberius' second in command and perhaps his closest friend, but he never even tried to hide his resentment for Angron's reshaping of the Legion: sending him to his death on Isstvan was unavoidable, though this -along with having to secretly betray almost a third of his warriors- would undoubtedly mark the breaking point for a caring officer such as Thanatos, whose only solace had been found in brotherhood for all the years of the Great Crusade. He nevertheless followed Angron in his assault to the surface and shed the blood of his brothers, abandoning himself to the Nails and the comfort they offered in exchange for slaughter. A persistent rumour claims that he managed to speak with a dying Nornas before he surrended his will to their artifical oblivion, while others believe that he personally killed his lieutenant. In any case, it would later be said by many that Captain Thanatos never made it back to the Merciless, but that a broken monster with his name and face had taken his place at the head of the 16th company. His cortical implants finally had the better of him, claiming one of the 12th Legion's most exteemed officers among their slaves in a bloody anticipation of what would soon become of all the sons of the Red Angel.

Isstvan V
[Record incomplete]

Shadow Crusade
The Merciless received the task to attack the Beneheventian subsector as support action to the incoming Shadow Crusade. The first planet to fall under their wrath was Mardrion, a popoulous hive world that granted most of the labour force for the region's capital system, Prosperine. Perhaps the target was chosen by virtue of a superior order, part of Lorgar's greater scheme; more likely, the World Eaters could not resist the temptation of jumping into a slaughter of such dimensions. Captain Tiberius Thanatos led the attack to Military Complex Alpha-51, rushing against a well prepared defense made up by the local PDF as well as a small continged of Raven Guard survivors from Isstvan V. The berserker assault proved too much for them to resist, and the Complex eventually fell, but not before Thanatos rose the head of Praetor Rahalder Vosan of the Raven Guard to the sky, roaring his martial supremacy on top of his enemy's ruined body as well as those of his honour guards.

During the siege of Iulia Augusta, Thanatos was heavily wounded by a massive shard of ferrocrete that splattered his secondary heart and left him impotent and agonising on the ground, forgotten by his blood maddened brothers in their need to fight against the garrison of Salamanders defending the city. He was captured by the enemy and taken into the city, in the desperate hope that he could be used as a hostage, or, perhaps, give information about the traitors' next moves. In truth, Captain Nocturus of the Salamanders had long been separated from his legion, and learned about the events of Isstvan V by the few Raven Guards that managed to escape from Mardrion. Perhaps he hoped that a traitor would be better informed about Primarch Vulkan's disappearence, or the ongoing galaxy-wide civil war. Whichever the case, the humiliation of being taken and chained by the enemy set Thanatos' Butchers Nails aflame, and he didn't scream anything more than empty threats and meaningless farnetications. Those often concerned the atrocities suffered by the loyalists on Istvaan III and V, though, and Nocturus gave up to the rage, almost beating Thanatos to death. This increased the chained berserker's sense of humiliation and worsened his mental conditions, as if the erosion provoked by the Butcher's Nails wasn't enough. Thanatos was later rescued by the Merciless' freshly appointed Pit Champion, Solomn Drakon, who led a task force into the city and killed the garrison left to guard the prisoner as the main force had to defend the walls of Iulia Augusta.

Wargear

Gorebringer: A massive two handed chainsword crafted by Archmagos Veneratus Vel Kheredar himself, Gorebringer (or, as it's often called, “The Primarch's gift”) was given to Tiberius by Angron himself, not yet completely overrun by the Nails and the despise for his genetic sons, as a reward for the captain's vital contribution during the void war fought in Sarum's atmosphere. The weapon's teeth, made with a misterious xeno material found during the Golgothan Slaughter, proved enough to tear through a Tactical Dreadnought Armor during the dark times of the Horus Heresy.