A Pligrimage to the place where gods and mortals meet revealed a most unexpected outcome! Take a look at the Word Bearers!
Via our good friends at Lexicanum
The Pilgrimage ultimately proved that the Emperor’s Imperial Truth was in fact a lie and that gods truly did exist
Encouraged by Erebus and Kor Phaeron, who had in truth already fallen to worship of the Ruinous Powers, Lorgar came to realise that all of the belief systems which featured in countless other human cultures across the galaxy shared a common origin and underlying message. He believed that because all the countless legends of divinity, from so many disparate cultures, all agreed on other powers than exist beyond the veil, that the human species’ most natural instinct could not be false. Thus he took The Pilgrimage, a mythological journey to the place where gods and mortals meet in an attempt to discover the universal truth of the universe and enlighten humanity and his father.
The Word Bearers Legion rejoined the Great Crusade as a front for the Pilgrimage and scattered itself across the stars, bringing more worlds into compliance than any other Legion in the last fifty years of the Crusade. Lorgar himself joined the 1,301st Expedition Fleet and eventually came to Cadia where they received validation for their theories that all of the Old Faiths across the galaxy shared similar origins, and thus shared a universal truth. Ingethel, a native of Cadia was anointed by the gods as Lorgar’s guide in revealing the Primordial Truth and undertook a ritual to do so which elevated her to the ranks of the daemonic as Ingethel the Ascended.
Ingethel the Ascended led the Serrated Sun Chapter of the Word Bearers into the Great Eye where the failure of the Eldar Empire was witnessed first hand. Ingethel informed the Word Bearers that the Eldar failed and suffered the Fall because at the moment of their ascension they were unable to accept the Primordial Truth. They gave birth to a god of pleasure and promise, yet they felt no joy.
Their new god awoke to find its worshipers abandoning it out of ignorance and fear, thus was the endless storm of the Great Eye formed, an echo of the birth-cries of the Eldar’s new god. The nature of the Primordial Truth was revealed to the Word Bearers in the ashes of the Eldar Empire, they learned that in order for humanity as a species to survive they must not commit the same sins the Eldar did, they must instead accept Chaos.
The Pilgrimage ultimately proved that the Emperor’s Imperial Truth was in fact a lie and that gods truly did exist. Secretly pledging themselves to new Dark Gods, the Word Bearers hid their true allegiance for the next four decades.
Lorgar and the Word Bearers spent the remaining years of the Great Crusade attempting to enlighten humanity about the universal truths of the universe, and began the long process of sending their forces throughout the rest of the Astartes Legions to establish Warrior Lodges and subvert them from within. Through this subterfuge they eventually managed to sway several Primarchs to their cause, the most notable being Horus Lupercal.
Meanwhile, the Word Bearers avoided suspicion by loyally waging a great many campaigns, soon becoming one of the most militarily successful Legions in the Crusade and seemingly making up for their past failures. In command of the 2nd largest Legion after the Ultramarines, Lorgar’s campaigns against predominately Human empires became vicious, brutal, and seemingly spiteful, perhaps a way for the Legion to vent its hidden frustrations.
When it became clear that humanity could not be enlightened without bloodshed whilst it remained shackled to the lies of the Emperor, Lorgar and Erebus helped orchestrate the corruption of Horus himself, initiating the Horus Heresy.
