Astartes Chapter
Mortifactors
The Bone Reapers · Worshippers of the Honoured Dead · The Skull-Faced
LOYALIST · ULTRAMARINES SUCCESSOR
Sons of Ultramar, Worshippers of Death
By gene-seed the Mortifactors are impeccably pedigreed: a Second Founding successor of the Ultramarines, one of the Primogenitor Chapters sprung directly from the line of Roboute Guilliman, and Codex Astartes-compliant in their order of battle. Yet in spirit they could scarcely be further from the rational, statesmanlike Ultramarines. The Mortifactors are a dark and brooding brotherhood who venerate their honoured dead to the point of obsession, a death-cult in power armour whose every rite turns on mortality and ancestry. The contradiction is the Chapter's heart — perfect Ultramarian blood poured into a culture that the lords of Macragge would find deeply unsettling.
The Sunless Plains of Posul
They recruit from Posul, a frigid Feral World upon whose plains the sun never rises, where nomadic tribes war endlessly with one another and practise cannibalism to survive the dark. From this grim stock the Mortifactors draw both their warriors and their faith, for the Chaplains who lead the Chapter's funerary cult are taken from Posul's own priest-caste and carry their world's death-worship up into the stars. Their fortress-monastery is the Basilica Mortis, a star fort orbiting Posul whose halls are lined with the engraved skulls of fallen battle-brothers, and whose great chapel is heaped with the skulls of enemies slain in victory.
The Trance Akin to Death
In battle the Mortifactors honour the Codex Astartes, but their war is steeped in morbid ritual found nowhere else in the Adeptus Astartes. On the eve of an engagement their warriors seek a trance-like state akin to death itself, communing with their honoured ancestors and shedding all fear of dying before they ever take the field. Their armour and heraldry are crusted with bone and skull-motifs, and many brothers paint their faceplates as bare skulls so that the foe meets death wearing its own image. To fight a Mortifactor is to fight a warrior who has, in his own mind, already died — and so cannot be made to flee.
Astador at Tarsis Ultra
When a splinter of Hive Fleet Leviathan fell upon Tarsis Ultra — a world under the sworn protection of the Ultramarines — the Mortifactors answered the call of their progenitors. A company under Chaplain Astador made void aboard the Strike Cruiser Mortis Probati and stood beside the Ultramarines 4th Company and a kill-team of the Deathwatch against the Tyranid invasion. There the bone-marked sons of Posul met the great devourer head-on, their fearlessness a wall against the terror the Tyranids exude. Earlier still they had bled on Armageddon against the green tide of Ghazghkull Thraka, returning home to rebuild their losses from Posul's harsh tribes.
The Reliquary of Ancestors
The Mortifactors' whole culture is an apparatus for honouring the dead. Every fallen brother's skull is reclaimed, inscribed with his deeds, and set among the ranked remains of the Basilica Mortis, so that the living fight beneath the literal gaze of every Mortifactor who came before. Their Chaplains, drawn from a death-worshipping priesthood, hold unusual sway, and the line between religious devotion and ancestor-worship is one the Ordo Hereticus has eyed with quiet unease. To the Chapter there is no contradiction: to remember the dead perfectly, to carry their skulls into war, is the highest fidelity a son of Posul can offer.
The Returned Primarch and the Riven Sky
Among the boons of the late 41st Millennium came the impossible: Roboute Guilliman himself, returned to lead the Imperium. The Mortifactors, his distant grandsons, sent a contingent to aid the resurrected Primarch during the Terran Crusade of 999.M41 as he fought back toward Holy Terra. When the Great Rift split the heavens and the Era Indomitus dawned, the death-cult of Posul fought on across a sundered galaxy, their fearlessness and skull-faced terror as useful as ever against the horrors the Rift disgorged. They remain what they have always been: Guilliman's blood wearing the face of death, marching toward their honoured ancestors without fear.
See also
Sources
- Lexicanum: Mortifactors
- Ben Counter, Warriors of Ultramar (Black Library)
- Warhammer 40k Wiki: Mortifactors
Languages: Türkçe
Unofficial fan project · Not affiliated with Games Workshop · Non-commercial editorial reference under fair use.