Azhmari Vulkyr

"If you wish to lecture me about the Emperor or duty to the Gods, save your breath. I have heard enough sermons for one lifetime."

- Vulkyr to Deimos Chaos Lord, heretic, monster and savior. Azhmari Vulkyr, over the centuries, has worn many epithets, none of them chosen by him. A scion of the backwater world of Ubervald, a warrior of the 8th Legion and a Night Lord who never cast his midnight eyes on the dead world of Nostramo, Azhmari is a new voice for a new generation of heretic, one that grows more powerful and influential with each passing decade, among the many shattered and broken Legions in the Eye of Terror.

History
"Where we are going, there are no gods."

- Deimos' reply Long before setting foot in power armor, long before he strode the stars of the Milky Way, the Chaos Lord who would be known as Azhmari Vulkyr was an unassuming son of a Redemptionist preacher on the backwater world of Ubervald. Tithed to the Astartes of the Raven Guard, the protectors of Ubervald from birth, Azhmari endured a lifetime of brutal training to join the Emperor's Chosen in their conquest of the stars and their eternal fight against Chaos. Despite his noble birth, Vulkyr was not given an easy life, constantly tortured by his father and his trainers in preparation for joining the Raven Guard.

The Red Hand Night Lords descended on Ubervald before the Raven Guard ever had a chance to claim him. When the Chaos Marines attacked the stronghold of House Vulkyr, the lord of the mansion offered Azhmari to the invading heretics in exchange for his own life and the life of his other children. In fury, Azhmari abandoned his post, hunting his brothers and sisters and cutting them down one by one, before he impaled his father on his sword. This act of heresy and hate inspired Lord Deimos, the then-leader of the Red Hand to induct Vulkyr.

For several centuries, Vulkyr served the Night Lords, achieving victories over the Imperial Fists and other loyalist legions as a Champion. His work was great enough that Deimos bequeathed upon Azhmari his Daemonsword in exchange for a relic-Thunderhammer Vulkyr and his squad recovered from the Imperial Fists.

Eventually, differences in personality would lead Deimos and Vulkyr to a duel. Vulkyr believed that the Ruinous Powers could be harnessed as a weapon against the Imperium, where Lord Deimos disagreed. To prove that he was free of the taint of Chaos, Vulkyr slew Deimos with his own relic Thunderhammer instead of his Daemonsword, to prevent the Daemon in the blade from eating his soul.

Vulkyr now leads the Red Hand Night Lords in their crusade against the Imperium. Despite his antipathy with the warband's champion, Kulstov the Bloody-Handed, Vulkyr attempts to lead his fellow Night Lords in righteous vengeance against the Imperium who wronged them.

Personality
"Even those not from Nostramo remember the Heresy. They remember knowing what it meant to feel righteous. The traitors need that, on some level. We need the delusion that we are not simply evil men."

- Azhmari Vulkyr

Azhmari is something of an anomaly among the traitors that lurk in the Eye. Despite living for barely a millennium, Azhmari is very mature for his age. The Night Lord sees the Long War against the Imperium as necessary but harrowing. As much as he can, Azhmari strives to be an honorable warrior. Never having personally met the Emperor or his Primarch, Azhmari has seen firsthand the pain and misery that comes from accepting the divine as sacrosanct. Almost uniquely among his brethren in the 42nd Millennium, Azhmari keeps his superstition at a minimum, striving to understand science and philosophy as much as he can.

Azhmari has a special hate for the pious, and the Red Hand Night Lords will attack the faithful of the Emperor and the Ruinous Powers alike. Like most Night Lords, the Red Hand tend to join up with other warbands to spread havoc, and quickly retreat the to the Warp before anyone knows what happened.

Azhmari, is ultimately a fairly young Astartes joining the Long War, and his inexperience with things like Legion tactics and the pride his fellow Night Lords hold Nostramo to can occasionally get in the way. Despite this, Azhmari is a capable leader, a reasonable authority figure and a deadly combatant.

Trivia

 * Azhmari Vulkyr appears in the short story, Memories of a Warlord.