Apostles of Death

Apostles of Death are a warband of Chaos Space Marines that is roughly the size of one of the FIrst Founding Legions.

Origins
While it's not entirely certain how and when the warband was created, it is certain that the Word Bearers Legion had something to do with it. A large portion (approximately 30%) of Chaos Marines in the warband are former Word Bearers, and the Apostles of Death host liasion officers from the Legion to maintain contact with their cousins. This is also supported by the fact that the Apostles of Death are well known for their enthusiastic use of all types of daemons in battle, though similarly to those in the Word Bearers Legion, mutation rates are unusually low.

Homeworld
The warband owns a Daemon World in the Eye of Terror known as Uchastok. Formerly a forgotten hive world, after the Chaos Marines vanquished its meager defenses and their Chaos Lord ascended into daemonhood, the warband's Sorcerer Lord used his coven to open a warp rift and sucked the planet deep into the Eye of Terror to protect it from further invasions should the Imperium rediscover its existence in their archives. Through the use of their vast legion of slavestock, they erected cities and fortresses across its surface, most notably Xadorov (inhabited by the Khorne worshippers) and the capital Borrohgrad (owned by the sorcerers). From that point on, Uchastok became their main staging ground and source of slaves and initiates.

Uchastok has a harsh and unforgiving climate. Little grows on its surface, but what does is almost always a hazard. Fields of long grass as sharp as daemons' claws and groves of bleeding trees don't serve to make it any more welcoming as a place to live, and around these are just plains of sand and jagged rock. The temperature during the day often rises so high that normal humans can barely work or even stay conscious outside of buildings, and at night if they slept outside they would risk freezing to death. The regions that are not dominated by the Chaos Marines and their slaves are home to all manner of daemons, who wage territory disputes with each other almost unendingly.

Command Structure
Currently the Apostles of Death are headed by Daemon Prince Kserdiek, formerly the Chaos Lord who led the warband. A brilliant tactician and powerful psyker, even before his ascension Kserdiek was so terrifying in combat that when subjugating lesser Chaos warbands they would surrender rather than face him in battle. However, his minions see little of him; instead, most orders and supervision go through his proxy. Although known by very few, it is a fact that he orchestrated this in order that his proxy would be most hated by his followers and therefore it would be that much less likely that he would be the one they'd unite against. Beneath the proxy are the commanders of each "subdivision" of the Chaos Marines: the Berzerker Champion, Noise Chamption, Plague Champion, Sorcerer Lord and Chief Havoc, as well as a cadre of elite possessed Marines and any liasion officers.

Undivided Warriors
Ordinary Chaos Marines, Havocs, possessed Chaos Marines, candidates and initiates fall into this category. They are divided into Squads, and each squad is divided into smaller units called Talons. A Squad is 4 Talons and each Talon is two Chaos Marines, a Havoc, a possessed Marine, an initiate and a candidate. If there are not enough initiates or candidates, an extra Chaos Marine and/or an extra Havoc fills the slot.

Khorne Berzerkers
The most numerous monotheistic group, Khorne's warriors hold a plurality of 40% of the warband's total fighters, including slaves and cultists but not including candidates. They are also the most loosely organized, in randomly allocated squads consisting of seven ordinary Berzerkers led by an Aspiring Champion. Initiates, though assigned to Berzerkers, do not count as part of the squad.

Plague Marines
Some 10% of the warband follow Nurgle, and although they are far from the largest group, they are allowed an entire deck to themselves on the Flames of Damnation, the Apostles' corrupted battle barge. They are divided into tightly-knit groups of 7, and with few exceptions each Plague Marine spends all his time in the company of his 6 brothers. Each squad has a name, "Blister," "Infection," "Pestilence," etc. However, none is led by an aspiring champion, but rather the squad makes decisions together to promote bonding and equality.

Noise Marines
Strictly speaking, the devotees of Slaanesh are not organized into squads, but rather there is an elaborate "pecking order" and the Noise Champion picks the warriors he sends into battle based upon a number of factors including which ones he currently favors the most.

Sorcerers
Easily the smallest collection of Chaos Marines in the warband, the minions of Tzeentch account for less than 300 individuals, excluding candidates. Most never achieve the rank of Sorcerer, but are instead ordinary warriors who wield heavy weapons. What sets them apart from normal Havocs is their armour; not only is it surgically grafted to their bodies, but beforehand it is also imbued with the psychic energy of a slain daemon at the hands of the Sorcerer Lord. The few who have potent enough psychic talents are trained in the black arts of sorcery and the excavation of hidden knowledge. Any candidates owned by the Cult of Tzeentch who are destined to become sorcerers simply skip the rank of initiate and graduate immediately to the rank of apprentice once their combat training and surgeries are completed. Theoretically there could be an inordinate number of apprentices and Tzeentch Havocs (although in practice, candidates fit to join the cult are few and far between), but at any given time there are only 9 fully fledged sorcerers in the Black Coven, including the Sorcerer Lord himself. Apprentices are the leaders of Enclaves, which is a group of six Tzeentch Havocs and two candidates. Each Enclave is also assigned to either a Defiler or a Helbrute.

Ranks
Occasionally, a tactical situation may call for special units consisting of warriors from different subdivisions. In these cases, certain warriors outrank certain other warriors, not through durability or ruthlessness, but through experience and intelligence levels.

Teir 1
Candidates and initiates. Initiates are the most basic tactical unit that the Apostles of Death recognize as something other than cannon fodder. Although spit on by fully "grown" Chaos Marines, they are still considered to have enough training and experience to be combat effective. Candidates are pre-surgery adolescents/young adults who are warband hopefuls or Imperial Guardsmen taken prisoner from weak units that the Apostles preyed upon. As such, they have little to no relevent tactical knowledge and are bossed around by initiates.

Teir 2
Havocs and Tzeentch Havocs. Freshly-graduated warriors, they are less than a century old, newly converted to Chaos, or both. They are assigned the "boring" tasks of supporting units who are sent in to do the real fighting, manning outposts/fallback points, and guarding prisoners. Tzeentch Havocs have the additional duty of wargear inventory.

Tier 3
Chaos Marines, Khorne Berzerkers, Plague Marines, and Noise Marines. All of these types of warriors have been promoted from their basic status of Havoc and are finally beginning to be taken seriously by their aspiring champions. They are often selected to study under an aspiring champion, possessed Marine or liasion officer to refine their talents and become more effective warriors. With the exception of Khorne Berzerkers, who don't care about command structure, they try to appear as eager as possible for even the worst jobs to potentially secure a slot with a senior Apostle of Death. They can also be the most reckless in combat, second only to the Berzerkers.

Teir 4
Apprentices, aspiring champions, some Noise Marines (those midway up in the pecking order). These are the unit leaders in their subdivisions, experienced warriors at least 2 centuries old who have gained positive attention from Kserdiek in some way. They are hand-picked by his proxy specially for their leadership skills, tactical knowledge, and individual skillsets.

Teir 5
Possessed Marines, liasion officers, and "specialty" Chaos Marines. While not technically bound to the chain of command, these are some of Kserdiek's most trusted senior officers and some of the few who communicate with him regularly. Centuries old and the veterans of thousands of battles, possessed Marines are often squad leaders amongst the undivided subdivision, but there are quite a few of them whose skills are put to better use burrowing into enemy ships and camps, wreaking destruction and softening the way for a main assault force. The two oldest and fiercest are enlisted as Kserdiek's personal enclave, body guards and tactical advisors in one.

Teir 6
Subdivision commanders, the proxy, and Kserdiek. The leaders everyone answers to, regardless of subdivision. However only Kserdiek and his proxy can issue orders to liasion officers and "specialty" Chaos Marines. All of them can issue commands to possessed Marines.

Head Recruitment Officer
The induction and processing of candidates falls to a warrior who is intelligent, experienced, ruthless and unbiased. Despite needing to be intelligent and unbiased, this position is often held by a veteran Khorne Berzerker. The preferred skillset includes character judgment, knowledge in daemonology, experience with a multitude of weapons and having taken part in at least 100 campaigns. The officer is almost always a former squad leader who has fought an unusually high number of battles against Tyranids, Eldar, or other Chaos warbands.

Logistics and Navagation Officer
A former Tzeentch Havoc, this Chaos Marine has a high proficiency in organizational skills and a higher-than-average psychic potential, though not high enough to be trained as a sorcerer. He is tasked with maintaining order within the armory and supervising the slaves who guide the battle barge through the warp.

Surgical Officers
Certain Chaos Marines who follow Slaanesh are given specialized surgical training for the purpose of creating initiates and healing battle wounds. However, being followers of God of Excess, they delight in performing horrible and unnecessary experiments on their patients. If the injured warrior in question has allies, one of them will often stand guard to ensure his safety from this torture. If he is widely hated, though, his safety is almost always in jeopardy.

Recruitment
Prior to their acquisition of Uchastok, the Apostles of Death operated from their battle barge, drifting through the warp and realspace in search of victims. They would often target Imperial Guard vessels that were already visibly weakened by a previous engagement or that had been unexpectedly cut off from their armada and gotten lost. Most were unfit and used for slavestock, but young soldiers (16-18 Terran years) were still viable candidates for gene seed implantation.

Their other main source were those culled from the ranks of slave children; however, as these humans were born to weaker parents, this had a less reliable yeild of strong future warriors.

Their current standard are non-slave humans born on Uchastok. The usual trial to be deemed a worthy candidate is to cross the regions alone to the capital city of Borrohgrad, where the sparsely populated stretches of land are more than a sufficient enemy.

Once a candidate has proven himself strong enough, he is processed by the head recruitment officer. Held down with an arm stretched out, the recruitment officer taps the pointed end of a daemon's tusk down on the floor to either side of the arm at a rapid rate, counting each tap. Once the arm is struck, the candidate's number is determined. If it is the sacred number of one of the Chaos Gods, then they are induced into the God's cult. If it is any other number, they are trained as a future Havoc. If multiple candidates have the same number, ex. 9, then they are labled as 9-1, 9-2, etc. Once the number is determined, the same tusk is used to carve it into the candidate's back and the wounds are then burned, ensuring a permanent scar to prevent mistakes.

Candidates are usually left alone for a few days before they begin their training. They are under the charge of the proxy for a few months until their implants. The procedure of turning them into an Astartes is different in the warband than it is for loyalists. Where Imperial Space Marines perform the surgeries with months or years apart, in the Apostles of Death every organ is implanted in the same surgery. Being Chaos Marines, they care little whether or not the initiate becomes mutated by this haphazard process.

The next step is sorcery. An apprentice is called to perform unholy curses on the body of the initiate once the operations are finished which ensure that one or two nights' rest will cause him to grow to his full size. However it is a risky process; on more than one occasion this has resulted in the initiate suffering lethal consequenes.

If the initiate survives through all of this, he fights a daemon to be granted the right to wear armour and use a weapon. For the next two decades he will train in a squad, and once he is deemed competent and skilled enough by the squad leader, he graduates to the rank of Havoc.

Warband Culture
The senior officers of the warband are often left to their own devices, loosely supervised by the proxy who is usually too busy training candidates to care. Unless a major campaign is underway, Kserdiek himself is presumably absent, because he is so rarely seen by his lower-ranking subordinates. In reality he often withdraws into seclusion so that he can psychically traverse the warp in search of knowledge or the staging ground for his next conquest. Often for over a decade the subdivision champions are free to launch their own assaults on neighboring worlds in the Eye of Terror or even to fight amongst themselves. As the sorcerers and the Plague Marines are on opposite sides of the planet they have little contact, but for the warriors of Slaanesh and Khorne, who are spread through the majority of the regions, there is constant fighting.

During a major conflict, however, they work together in almost perfect unity with only marginal squabbling between individual Marines. They tend to keep to themselves and their own traditions.

The Plague Marines often congregate into one putrid mass, praying joyfully to Nurgle or infecting injured slaves with the protein compound that turns them into mindless plague zombies. The sorcerers often gather their own slaves, readily sacrificing them for psychic visions from the warp and learning new ways to harness the black energies of Chaos. The Noise Marines take part in elaborate rituals to feed the daemons in their weapons and armour, including several complex stages that involve elegant feasts and the sexual assault of slaves and other Chaos Marines in a partifular order or fashion.

The Khorne Berzerkers hold gladiator tournaments in the old style of the pre-Heresy World Eaters, with weapons chained to their arms and no armour to sheild them. Undivided Chaos Marines continue their training, seeking the approval of a senior officer to sponsor them, customize their weapons and armour, take part in sparring, and occasionally engage in sexual encounters with Noise Marines, though this at great personal risk for both parties.

The most immediately obvious differences between each subdivision are in their eating habits and speech. While as a whole they communicate a mashed language of daemonic phrases and Low Gothic, each cult also has its own unique and completely separate lexicon that they use only with each other. The main source of food is human meat due to lack of other options, but each subdivision deals with this in its own way.

The Slaanesh Cult will fast for weeks on end, whipping each other with spiked chains until the alotted time has expired. Afterwards they will hold great feasts on all manner of food that they have raided from other sources, eating from fine dishes with crystal eating utensils. Their table manners are impeccable and they eat until they're tired.

The Plague Marines and their cultists scrape whatever infectious and corrupted tissue is currently growing from their walls or bodies and gorge on this before burning the human meat to a crisp with flamers and consuming it. The taste of the toxic promethium and the charred organic matter is welcomed as an alternative form of destruction.

Sorcerers do not ingest human meat directly. Instead, it is fed to captive animals possessed by lesser daemons. Those animals are then harvested for their meat. Each devotee of Tzeentch eats only a small cube of the raw animal meat, along with bitter roots and herbs grown by slaves in a bowl of fresh daemon blood. Often, this will induce powerful psychic visions, even for those warriors who are not gifted with sensitivity to the warp.

Khorne Berzerkers are the most picky bunch. They will only consume the liver, spleen and other blood-producing organs, including cracking open long bones to suck out the marrow. The rest is ignored and usually eaten by cultists or slaves who aren't strong enough to catch rats.

Undivided Marines will often steal food from Noise Marines, but will also cook an eat humans, rats, the flesh of any recently encountered xenos and whatever alcohol they raided from enemy ships and worlds. Superstitions often determine their meals if they have more than one option: humans are eaten during transit, or if nothing of note has happened to the individual since his last meal; Eldar is a rare delicacy to be prepared with the same herbs the sorcerers cultivate in celebration of a hard-fought victory; rats are shredded into strips and eaten bones and all with no alcohol as penance after a defeat; Ork flesh is to be diced, soaked in dry wine and then made into soup with a blood broth and ground bones to be consumed before the first battle of a campaign.

The only time the warband eats together as a whole is after a long war is won or when new liasion officers are accepted onto the battle barge. For such feasts the lower-ranking Marines will purposely hunt down loyal Space Marines to be freshly prepared and eaten, as well as a source of gene seed and other post-human organs that are implanted into candidates.

One widely practiced custom throughout the warband is altering the names of their candidates, often shortening the last name or combining the first and last to make a new name for their initiates. No one knows how it came about, but it is used to symbolize that the initiate in question is now property of the warband.

One particularly destructive task that all initiates are put through is a trial of sudden torment. It happens without warning and they virtually never catch the perpetrator. A senior officer is secretly assigned an initiate, and once the initiate is alone, the officer strikes. The initiate is then either psychically ravaged or beaten into unconsciousness, though in rare instances rape has also been reported. The sense of embarassment and shame combines with feeling wronged, giving the initiate a more unstable mindset that drives him to madness, rage, or both. Once this trial is over, they graduate as a Chaos Marine and enter the warband fully fledged with a vengeance to be unleashed.

Word Bearers Legion
As they were responsible for the creation of the warband in a major way, the Apostles of Death readily maintain a close pact with the XVII Legion and refer to them as "cousins." Word Bearer Marines who are sent as liasion officers for a few decades are welcomed with open arms by most Apostles, and many former Word Bearers swell their ranks as valued officers and squad leaders.

Salgorod 104th Company "Hab Stalkers"
An obscure planet on the edge of the Imperium called Vel Heramoor was used as a source of Imperial Guard, with the battalions named after continents. Salgorod, the largest continent, had a variety of climates and was known to produce some of the toughest Guardsmen. Unknown to the planet's administratum, the 104th Company was sucked through a warp rift without warning and discovered by the Apostles of Death by pure chance. Although some of the Guardsmen were killed, the Black Coven with the help of the Noise Marines was miraculously able to capture the majority of the force and convert them to Chaos.

Sent back to Vel Heramoor with little suspicion aroused, the 104th was able to covertly abduct potential recruits for the Apostles of Death for nearly a century before they were discovered by the Ordo Hereticus. The taint was so deep by that point that the entire planet was exterminated; however, despite the Inquisition's best efforts, the Apostles of Death had covered their tracks well enough that they were not found as the cause of the taint. While the planet was being expunged, the Apostles of Death were in the midst of turmoil following a failed campaign against a system dominated by Orks. The loss of Vel Heramoor was the final event in a series that enabled then-possessed champion Kserdiek-Algr'ok to gain power as Chaos Lord.

Timeline

 * Unknown Date, Late M38: Under mysterious circumstances with heavy Word Bearer involvement, the Apostles of Death warband is formed.
 * 148 M39: Chaos Lord Khusseran journeys through the warp with his small warband to beseech a Khornate Daemon Prince for favor before his next campaign. He is killed by the Daemon Prince and the warband flees.
 * 532 M39: Chaos Lord Haxar subjugates a small group of Khorne Berzerkers. For the next two milennia, Kravos will lead the Apostles of Death Khornate contingent.
 * 718 M39: Sorcerer Lord Damoc attempts to seize power from Lord Khusseran and is killed. In a twist of fate, an apprentice named Valkshar confronts the already weakened Chaos Lord and takes control for himself.
 * 821 M39: Lord Valkshar is travelling the warp collecting small warbands of renegade Space Marines when he happens across the lost Imperial Guard fleet. It is surprisingly easy for his sorcerers to take control of the Salgorod 104th and he is able to set up a recruitment outpost on Vel Heramoor.
 * 876 M39: While harvesting cultists from a world in the grip of a Necron incursion, Lord Valkshar learns of an ancient daemonic artifact hidden in an obscure location on the planet's smallest moon. He finds it hidden in a cave that was disguised as an Imperial shrine, and on first glance seems to be an ordinary Mk. III power armour helmet. However he quickly discovers that it is imbued with the essence of 1,000 furies, conquered by a Chaos Champion whose name and origin will never be known. Over the following decades the force of its loathsome energy will drive Lord Valkshar to madness.
 * 913 M39: Lord Valkshar, by now completely rid of any of his former brilliance and sanity, discovers a star system populated by Orks who are preparing for a Waaagh! against their Imperial neighbors. Though all his officers desperately try to make him realize that he cannot possibly win, he elects to assault them on a whim.
 * 914 M39: Ver Heramoor is put to the sword by the Ordo Hereticus. The warband learns of this only after retreating from the Orks' system when several regiments of Imperial Guard arrive to cleanse it of the xenos. Because Lord Valkshar has gotten a significant number of them needlessly killed, his minions conspire against him. Before they can act, possessed champion Kserdiek-Algr'ok challenges him and wins, claiming the title of Chaos Lord for himself. A Word Bearer liason officer, Khorase'vod, becomes a full-time warband member and is named Kserdiek's proxy.
 * 227 M40: Lord Kserdiek undertakes his first major crusade against an Eldar Craftworld that is consumed by the warp. Through careful tactical planning, he acheives victory after a long and drawn-out conflict against the xenos. Several small warbands who had noticed the plight tried to opportunistically prey on the Apostles of Death while they are distracted, but ultimately most of them join Lord Kserdiek after he bests their champions. Following his triumph, it became a tradition to celebrate major victories by feasting on Eldar flesh.
 * 396 M40: By this point, Lord Kserdiek's brutal track record is well known among most other Chaos Marines. While Legions and very large warbands have nothing to fear from him, smaller groups of renegade Space Marines live in dread of the day he arrives to acquire them and their resources.
 * 474 M40: The Apostles of Death have a minor altercation with a splinter group of Iron Warriors. In typical fashion, Lord Kserdiek offers them the joice of union or destruction. The stubborn Iron Warriors fight to the last man, refusing to give in to Kserdiek. The death toll is felt mostly by the Berzerkers, but they are indifferent to the goings on in the galaxy beyond blood and death, so the end of the skirmish is hailed as a victory by the Apostles of Death because they gain a significant amount of war machinery as a result. However, the Iron Warriors Legion now has a noted increase in hostility towards the Apostles of Death.
 * 580 M40: The warband takes a minor blow from a splinter fleet of Tyranids. After releasing a plague on a forgotten Imperial world that was engineered by the Nurgle cult, in the midst of their pillaging spores begin raining down and several Chaos Marines are killed retreating from the xenos.
 * 638 M40: Lord Kserdiek ravages a Daemon World in the Eye of Terror belonging to a rival Chaos warband. For his success, not only are his ranks swollen with new warriors who chose to join his forces, he is gifted with daemonic energies flowing through his bone structure. He is now twice as fearsome in combat as he was before.
 * 912 M40: The Apostles of Death discover a former Imperial world devoid of human life. Though populated only by the native fauna, they note that it clearly used to be a site of great importance that was somehow lost within the vast bureaucracy of the Imperium. Statues of Space Marine heroes from milennia ago can be found in many of the decrepit cities, and one crumbling fortress even holds a stockpile of Horus Heresy-era wargear. This incredible discovery is a welcome sight for the warband, who until now have had to work very hard for access to functional equipment. Now they will no longer have to struggle with repairing power armour and bolters that should have been scrapped long ago.
 * 167 M41: A Noise Marine named Andrios impresses Lord Kserdiek by capturing three Ultramarine Scouts. As prime recruitment material, all efforts are put in to convert the neophytes to Chaos. Two are eventually killed by Khorne Berzerkers, but one arrived injured and by the time his body had fully healed it was an easy task to bring him into the fold of the Warband.
 * 264 M41: Gendrach, the chief recruiting officer, is killed during a dispute with a Plague Marine that turns violent. An intelligent Khorne Berzerker named Xader is chosen to take his place, and almost immediately the warband sees a mugh higher quality of candidate enter their ranks. Xader's mellow personality, grasp of daemonology and general competence are unusual for a follower of the Blood God, but he proves himself perfect for the role and the Apostles of Death enjoy well-selected candidates for the next few centuries.
 * 391 M41: Through the usual means of fearmongering, backstabbing and general trickery, Sokolaq seizes power of the Black Coven and ascends to the rank of Sorcerer Lord. Despised by Plague Marines and by Lord Kserdiek himself, this will prove to be the cause of much strife.
 * 437 M41: In the middle of treacherously stealing recruits from a Chaos cult founded by a different warband, a mixed unit of Chaos Marines bring down a Valkyrie that was arriving to dig out the very same cult. Capturing the Guardsmen who weren't killed in the crash, they make haste to leave the world and avoid detection by the Imperium. As it wasn't their own recruiting world, and they'd only been stealing from it, they did not care about its fate and weren't keen on unnecessary confrontation with the Imperium. In the end, of nine Guardsmen captured, only four are viable candidates and the rest are enslaved.
 * 438 M41: After a brutal conquest against a massive Imperial defense, the Apostles of Death with the help of a small group of Word Bearer allies rend the world of Uchastok and take it for their own, using an enormous effort from the sorcerers to drag the planet into the Eye of Terror through a warp rift. Lord Kserdiek, after slaughtering the crew of a Warlord Titan, is able to merge with it and ascend to Daemonhood with the Titan twisting into his new body. The warband establishes its reign across their new Daemon World and celebrate their greatest triumph to date.

Notable Chaos Marines

 * Kserdiek-Algr'ok [Formerly: Unknown]: Kserdiek was once a possessed champion who overthrew his Chaos Lord to lead the warband. His origins are unclear, though the case can be vaguely made that he is a former Word Bearer. A tactical genius with a devious mind, he maintained power through clever combat engagements and ensuring that his proxy was the target of the warband's hate and frustration. Rarely showing himself around his lower ranking subordinates, only his senior officers and liasions from the Word Bearers Legion had regular contact with him. He spent the majority of his free time in meditation and prayer, meticulously planning his next conquest. Despite having mild psychic talents, Kserdiek also maintained favor with the Blood God and officially was a follower of Chaos Undivided. A torturer who delighted in the suffering of his slaves and modifying the trials his candidates had to face before their initiation, Kserdiek was also very fair in his cruelty, never favoring a subdivision over another subdivision. He had a great appreciation for daemonmancy, handpicking the Chaos Marines who would be gifted with possession and consistently employing all manner of daemons in combat.
 * Khorase'vod [Formerly: Unknown]: Kserdiek's proxy and one of the most hated Apostles of Death in the history of the warband, if not the most hated. While aware that Kserdiek was extending no favors by sending all orders through him, Khorase'vod did not care and took delight in enforcing the (often outlandish) punishments. He was also largely involved in the training and conditioning of candidates, tormenting them mercilessly to root out the weak-minded. In order to maintain the fear he struck into others, he ensured that he was never seen without his helmet. This basic trick of hiding his face kept any warrior who saw him in a state of unease and intimidation, no matter how slight. However it was also so that Kserdiek could never read his expressions, as he was plotting to overthrow the Chaos Lord at the first chance he got. In a twist of fate that his evil nature deserved, he was never granted that chance. After he raped an initiate, the Chaos Marine who'd fallen victim to him discovered the truth, and in the heat of a major battle on Uchastok overtook him and ended his life.
 * Kravos [Formerly: Diedrick Kravasos, Original World Eater]: Kravos was the Berserker Champion of the Khone cult in the Apostles of Death after his own small warband was absorbed into their ranks. Despite being a brutally effective warrior, he did not have an especially high level of intelligence. This gave rise to the stereotype among the Apostles that all Khorne Berserkers are stupid; this wasn't helped after Khorne gifted him and the mutation caused him to lose the ability to speak. Kravos was a fearsome looking Chaos Marine. His personal chambers were lit only by a dim lumen bulb, and being shrouded in the shadowed corner added to his creepiness. He wore his original XII Legion armour as it was fused to his flesh, and his mutation took over his helmet as well. His head and right arm were particularly bear-like, though the black "fur" was actually a layer of tiny, sharp spines. His power fist had morphed into a massive clawed paw, while the mouth grille had evolved into dagger-like fangs and a short muzzle. The green eye lenses still showed through, though, and the typical Khornate antlers still rose from his crown, showing that it had once been an ordinary helmet. Due to the encompassing mutation of his head, Kravos was unable to speak, and could only communicate by affirming questions with thunderous growls. He was also known to roar during combat, and kill ememies by biting down on their heads to crush their skulls.
 * Xader [Formerly: Alderic Xadeker, Unknown Legion]: An abnormally calm and rational Khorne Berserker, Xader was the chief recruitment officer for several centuries. A known expert in daemonology and its uses, Xader was highly valued even before he attained this rank. Because of his unparalelled skills, he was awarded his own quarters upon his promotion as well as a veteran possessed Marine as a personal bodyguard. Xader was also the unofficial referee of combat training between candidates and initiates. He had a known rivalry with Sodvom, a follower of Slaanesh who oversaw initiation surgical procedures.
 * Sokolaq [Formerly: Unknown]: A gifted sorcerer with a kniving nature, Sokolaq was the youngest Sorcerer Lord of the Black Coven to date. Enticed by opportunity and the belief that he would be best in a position of power, he took control of the Black Coven easily, an even that was not especially welcome by other members of the warband and even some of his new subordinates. Shrouded in mystery, which is the way he likes it, the majority of his fellow Chaos Marines only know for sure that he is often the recipient of powerful visions from the future.
 * Grozm [Formerly: Unknown]: An ordinary Berserker who was considered dumber than most. A constant companion to Vergerus, the two considered themselves brothers and both served as guardian and teacher for the candidate Ar'ghol. After Ar'ghol graduated, they welcomed him as a brother as well, and the trio almost always stuck together in combat. Grozm was known for his inability to speak in any volume between an inaudible whisper and a deafening shout, as well as his clueless optimism. However he was also a proficient user of not just the stereotypical chainbladed weapons favored by most Khornates, but also power claws, heavy bolters and missile launchers. He was killed during the final stage of the battle for Uchastok.
 * Vergerus [Formerly: Caudius Vergerus, Ultramarine Neophyte]: Vergerus was a lucky strike for the Apostles of Death when they captured him as a young Neophyte Scout. Injured at the time, when he healed he was easily converted and he was already schooled in the use of a variety of weapons. Additionally, he was an extremely smart and perceptive Chaos Marine, almost always several steps ahead of his comrades in arms. A very serious and brooding man, Vergerus spent most of his downtime practicing his skills with Grozm or studying under Xader, who had chosen to sponsor him. His main flaw was a deep pit of burning rage in his psyche, not caused by any trauma during his time as an initiate, but which had existed even when he was a child. Because of this, he was predestined to eventually join the cult of Khorne and become a Berserker, and sometimes his pounding bloodlust overshadowed his logic and he would act without thinking. Before these fits of impulsive rage made themselves known, he was in denial about his true nature and even maintained a romantic relationship with Luskar, a Noise Marine, for two decades. Eventually, though, he could hide from himself no longer, and accepted his future as a Berserker. Other Chaos Marines, especially liasion officers, were known to remark to him that becoming a Khorne Berserker was a criminal waste of his talents, which was why Xader took him on for study in the end so that they could try to salvage Vergerus' potential. Eventually assigned a candidate named Ar'ghol, Vergerus easily bonded with the former Guardsman through their matching stubbornness, cynicism and sourceless anger. After a daemon possessed Ar'ghol by accident, Vergerus stuck with his younger brother and even helped manage the situation when the very same daemon suddenly spawned. In an event that should have killed Ar'ghol, he was kept alive and eventually healed after a month. Separated during the final battle for Uchastok, they met up again in the aftermath, celebrated together, and continued their journey as future Khorne Berserkers.
 * Luskar [Formerly: Unknown]: An ordinary Havoc turned Noise Marine, Luskar was one of the first Chaos Marines who Vergerus got to know, and after Vergerus discovered his inevitable fate, they had a relationship with each other for twenty years. However, Vergerus eventually came to terms with this knowledge and no longer wished to pursue any romantic notions with Luskar, who spent the next decade trying to get his companion back. Finally accepting this fact, he did work with Vergerus on some things, but also unintentionally became the main source of Vergerus' mounting annoyance. Luskar did help rescue Ar'ghol when the daemon spawned by giving him medical attention, though after that their contact was minimal as Vergerus and Ar'ghol drew further into the Khorne subdivision.
 * Ar'ghol [Formerly: Alik Arghol, Imperial Guard Private]: Ar'ghol was one of the unlucky Guardsmen in the Valkyrie shot down by the Chaos Marines as they were stealing recruits. Captured by Vergerus and Grozm, though he initially despised them, eventually they became his closest brothers in a bond unusually strong for Chaos Marines who don't follow Nurgle. After his surgery that made him an initiate, a careless accident caused him to become possessed by the daemon Za'krim. During the campaign to control Uchastok, Za'krim's daemonic essence began to split in half, a fact discovered by an apprentice sorcerer when Ar'ghol began complaining of constant pain. If the new daemon spawned inside of Ar'ghol, its presence would split him apart at the molecular level, so in order to save him they were forced to use sorcery to transfer the new daemon's essence into the fetus of a pregnant slave, which they figured could become a candidate later. Ar'ghol still nearly died; however Vergerus carried him to the medical bay in time. It took the better part of a month for him to recover, but eventually he was well enough to take part in the final battle for control of the planet.
 * Sokolaq [Formerly: Unknown]: Sokolaq was the lead surgeon in charge of initiating candidates. A loyal follower of Slaanesh, he often performed hideous experiments on his patients until other Chaos Marines started standing guard so that they could stop him. Somehow Sokolaq, through skill, persistance and sorcery, was able to modify the corrupted armour of an Obliterator and surgically meld it with his own flesh, enabling him to use their unique ability to grow weapons out of his body. The great cost of this experiment crippled him, making him slow, far slower than any Obliterater so that he was no longer able to engage in active combat. It was rumored that he tried the same experiment on another Noise Marine, but that the patient was killed in the process. During the incident with Ar'ghol, Sokolaq became enraged that the weak Chaos Marine had not been placed in his care for his study and experimentation, and he attempted to kill Vergerus for the affront and nearly succeeded. However, Vergerus was able to call for help in time, and Xader arrived to aid his student and kill his rival out of sheer spite.

Warband Combat Doctrine
While it is well-known that the Apostles of Death highly favour the use of daemons during their crusades, during minor operations they prefer to stealthily achieve their goals without being caught to avoid unnecessary engagements that would waste resources. During battle, they often make use of their Berserkers' tendency towards horde warfare as a devastating first strike against their adversaries. During this time a small covert force will land to set up a forward position, and afterwards a potent combination of sorcery, daemonic summoning and heavy linebreaking with defilers and helbrutes are used to cripple any chance of a counter attack. However, if things go wrong, the Apostles of Death are versitile enough to engage in drawn-out seige warfare. Having warriors from all Legions who've studied many tactics, they have a diverse multitude of combat methods that they can employ with great effectiveness.