Brethren of Thunder

"Hear the cannons roar! Revel the noises of unmaking, in the Thunder that heralds doom!"

- Sorakae Vhak, beginning the Siege of Telos V

The Brethren of Thunder are a small warband of Iron Warriors of some infamy, composed of the remnants of the ancient Lyssatra warrior-society, sundered from the remnants of the Grand Battalion that turned on them for their cult-like ways. Now they fight for none save themselves, a wandering host of unhinged Chaos Space Marines obsessed with both creation and destruction, fighting for the sake of these two concepts alone.

The Burned Men
Seldom known to those that were not amongst the ranks of the 4th Legion during the halcyon days of the Great Crusade and the tumultuous wars of the Horus Heresy, within the ranks of the Iron Warriors existed a series of long-standing warrior societies, situated just outside of the Legion's military hierarchy and order of command. They were the Dodekatheon, the Apolakron, the Kheledakos, and the Tyranthikos, each so firmly entrenched within the culture of the sons of Perturabo that they resisted even the corrosive influence of Horus' Warrior Lodges, and yet none were more obscure yet infamous than the Lyssatra, the Brethren of Thunder.

Disparagingly known amongst their battle-brothers as the "Burned Men", the Lyssatra were a society composed of the Iron Warrior's most unhinged and war-scarred, so obsessed with creation as a means of destruction that they were almost like a cult rather than a gathering of like-minded Space Marines. They were weaponcrafter of the highest order, delving into the more arcane arts of technology beyond the extent of what many would consider sane or practical, and as a result they were a pariah group within their own Legion, a small cell of outcasts that many amongst the 4th Legion preferred to keep out of sight and out of mind.

The depravity of the Lyssatra only grew with the onset of the Horus Heresy, exposing them to the mysterious arts of warp-craft. While the rest of the Iron Warriors were content to keep the powers of the Horus' newfound daemonic allies at arms length, many of the Burned Men eagerly embraced these newfound powers in order to find new ways of pursuing the creation of the perfect weapon. Chief amongst these individuals was Sorakae Vhak, a Techmarine and master artificer who had long since fallen in with the Lyssatra. With the discovery of the reality-altering properties of the Warp, Vhak began to research into the application of these properties to conventional weaponry, and soon embarked upon the creation of what the galaxy would later term "Daemon Engines". His constructs and designs were wondrous to his fellow Brethren of Thunder, but to the rest of the 4th Legion it only served as the earmarks of a moral threat in their midst. Tensions arose between Vhak's coven of followers, that would have no doubt led to an internal conflict, if Horus hadn't lost his war again the Imperium.

With the death of the Warmaster, the Iron Warriors retreated back to their homeworld in an attempt to hold on to the pocket empire they had created from the star-systems surrounding Olympia. Vhak and his disciples were amongst the sons of Perturabo that entrapped the Primarch Rogal and his Imperial Fists within the Eternal Fortress of Sebastus IV, and took great pleasure in gunning down the Imperial Fists within it's trap-laden confines. This massacre would earn their Purterabo his dark apotheosis in a Daemon Primarch, and with his accession the Iron Warriors left for the Eye of Terror, leaving Dorn to wallow in his abject failure.

A Battalion Divided
With the 4th Legion's settlement on the Daemon World of Medrengard, the Grand Battalions were divided up and sent forth to claim vengeance in the name of mighty Perturabo. Vhak, now a fully-fledged Warpsmith, was assigned to the 16th Grand Battalion under the command of Warsmith Hurosus, a staunch traditionalist of an Iron Warrior who longed to restore the Legion to it's former glory. Unsurprisingly, Hurosus and Vhak did not at all get along, the Warsmith considering Vhak to be a dangerous radical while the Warpsmith considered Hurosus to be a narrow-minded zealot. Yet despite their animosities, the two both had skills required to effectively maintain the 16th, and thus they tolerated each other for the time being.

Laying siege to the Imperial Fortress World of Galahad, the 16th Grand Battalion cracked open the once-impregnable bastions and stormed the planet's most durable holds, massacring it's defenders and enslaving it's civilian population. From their they proceeded to expand upon the already formidable structures, draining oceans and ripping down forests to make way for an ever-advancing network of fortresses and military installations. Soon the surface of Galahad was little more than an expanse of unforgiving walls, towers, and crenelations, it's once-pristine blue skies now shrouded by industrial smog. Vhak himself commissioned an entire section devoted to furthering the goals of the Lyssatra, complete with a cavernous weapon-hangar, an extensive armory, and a gargantuan war-forge of his own design. He would rarely emerge from that place, save to test one of his various "creations" during the 16th Battalion's many conquests.

From Galahad the Iron Warriors poured forth to savage the Imperium in the name of mighty Purterabo, but as their position grew all the stronger, tensions were beginning to spill over within the Battalion. Even after all these years Vhak still kept the traditions of the Burned Men alive, and that attracted followers, particularly those whom had never part of the 4th Legion in the days of the Great Crusade. The main core of veterans within the 16th Grand Battalion sided with Warsmith Hurosus, distrusting both Vhak and his attempts to re-establish his radical warrior-society, but their numbers dwindled with each passing day. The situation escalated as the Battalions stored gene-stock began to dwindle, forcing the Apothecaries to splice their genetics with all manner of progenoids taken from other Astartes, and giving rise to all manner of "Half-Breeds" within the ranks. These unfortunates were reviled by their more traditionalist kin, and thus they would flock to the Warpsmith, who cared little for their lineage so long as the Lyssatra's ways were kept alive through them. Hurosus feared that with his newfound influence it wouldn't be long before he tried to grasp for dominion over the 16th, and so he struck first.

Two entire squads of Terminator-Armored Dominators stormed Vhak's war-forge intent on putting down the Warpsmith, only to find the forge derelict, empty, and filled with hidden Melta Charges. The fiery explosion that claimed their lives was only the first of many, as with a single command Vhak initiated hidden protocols within every single Servitor he had constructed, the cyber-menials having been spread throughout the confines of Galahad in preparation. Harmless chemicals stored within their bodily compartments ran together, combining in volatile mixtures and detonating all across the planet's adimantium and rockcrete landscapes in massive alchemical conflagrations. Chaos ensued shortly afterwards, thousands of slaves and Iron Warriors alike having perished in one fell swoop. Vhak marshaled his chosen warriors, and Hurosus did the same. The War of Iron had begun.

Warsmith Versus Warpsmith
(MORE TO COME)

Warband Culture
The Brethren of Thunder were founded on the ideals and creeds that once founded the Lyssatra, and as a result those ideals have evolved into something akin to a cult. All of the Brethren, from the highest Warpsmith to the lowest Thorakite, are obsessed with creation and destruction as an end to itself, reveling in the paradoxical implications of such a belief. They strive to create, both in the literal and metaphorical sense, so that they might become the ultimate weapons, and destroy, so that they might bask in the glory of the devastation wrought by their hands. All is a means to this end, and to the Brethren, nothing else matters. Things are born, things die, and they simply delight in their ability to replicate this process.

Because of this belief the Brethren of Thunder are almost zealous when it comes to the acquisition of technology, the more advanced and arcane the better. In their endless quest to create the ultimate weapons of mass destruction, they augment their wargear and even themselves with ill-understood mechanisms plundered from xenos sepulchers and daemon-infested hellholes alike, heedless of the risk. Their Warpsmiths are endlessly inventive, constantly experimenting for the sake of experimentation and giving birth to all manner of diabolical masterpieces as a result. Because of this, one of the Brethren's main goals is the acquisition of new technology, and they have often persecuted entire campaigns for that goal alone.

Despite their cultural differences, the Brethren of Thunder still consider themselves to be Iron Warriors, and thus still withold many cultural aspects of their former Legion. For all their cult-like ways the Brethren to not worship Chaos, but like most sons of Perturabo they see it as a means to an end and little more, though their mannerisms have lead many to believe that they have been hopelessly corrupted by the Ruinous Powers, for few outside the Iron Warriors know of the Lyssatra and it's ancient origins.