Abaddon the Despoiler

The Captain

Ezekyle Abaddon was First Captain of the Sons of Horus during the Great Crusade — Horus's right hand, his closest companion, and the commander of the legion's elite Justaerin Terminator company. He was, by every Crusade record, second only to Horus himself in standing.

When Horus fell to Chaos, Abaddon followed without question. He fought through every major engagement of the Heresy at his primarch's side. He watched Horus die aboard the Vengeful Spirit. He was the senior officer who recovered the Talon of Horus from the wreckage.

The Long Exile

After the Heresy, Abaddon retreated into the Eye of Terror in a state somewhere between mourning and fury. His Legion, the Sons of Horus, fragmented around him; the surviving captains scrabbled for warbands; the Crusade-era discipline collapsed into Chaos-warlord opportunism.

For decades — by realspace reckoning, longer — Abaddon refused to lead. The Cabal of warlords who tried to make him the new Warmaster gave up. Khayon, the Thousand Sons sorcerer who eventually became his closest lieutenant, found him in deep exile and persuaded him otherwise.

I am not my father. I am his heir, and I will finish what he began.

— Abaddon, attributed founding of the Black Legion

The Black Legion

Abaddon repainted the Sons of Horus armour black in mourning. He gathered the most disciplined survivors of every fallen Legion into a single warband under his command. He named it the Black Legion. He took the title Warmaster — not Horus's title, his own.

Thirteen Black Crusades have launched from the Eye of Terror since. Each has been, in its way, an argument with his father's legacy.

Cadia

The 13th Black Crusade, launched in 999.M41, achieved what twelve previous Black Crusades had not. The Volscani Cataphracts betrayed the Cadian Gate from inside. Cadia's pylon network — the secret stabilisers of warp travel in the region — was breached. The Blackstone Fortress Will of Eternity crashed into the planet. The Cadian Gate fell. The Cicatrix Maledictum opened.

Abaddon, by his own and the Imperium's reckoning, has done what no traitor since Horus has done. The Indomitus Era is the long argument between him and the resurrected Guilliman over whether the work begun ten thousand years ago can finally be ended.