Ashen Disciples

The Ashen Disciples are a Thrallband of the Thousand Sons traitor legion, dedicated to the collection of knowledge relating to the arcane. Following the splitting of their legion in the aftermath of the first casting of the Rubric of Ahriman, the Ashen Disciples have wandered across the galaxy, scouring any worlds they come across for another piece in their quest, plaguing the Imperium with their presence for ten thousand years.

Origin of the Disciples
The Ashen Disciples were once the size of a single squad, led by Ankhu Takar. Members of the Pyrae Cult, the squad unanimously agreed in the pursuit of arcane lore and abilities that would bolster the might of the Legion. They would spend whatever time they had not training or battling searching through hundreds or thousands of texts, seeking an answer, and would gather a following within the 6th Fellowship, all participating in the search for arcane secrets under the guidance of Ankhu.

When the Council of Nikea banned the use of psychic abilities within the Legions, the Gathering, the name given to the group, would become even more obsessed with completing their quest. Hunting through the great libraries of Tizca, they would search through arcane texts for every secret hidden within.

Razing of Prospero
The Gathering would truly form during the infamous Razing of Prospero. Unwilling to give up the knowledge and secrets they had gathered in their studies, they stood with Ahriman against the Space Wolves, fighting with extreme ferocity against what they saw as the embodiment of ignorance and the superstition that the Emperor and their Primarch had sought to destroy. Unleashing the full power of their arcane abilities against their foe in the form of blasts of psychic flame, they would fight vigorously in the shadow of the pyramid used by the Pyrae.

When Captain Phael Toron exploded as he lost control of his powers, the effects of the catastrophic event were felt especially hard by the Gathering. They lost a number of their members to the flesh-change, forced to put them down and end their pain. Then came for them the most demoralizing of all the consequences of Toron's overload.

The psychic explosion overwhelmed the titan Canis Vertex and fed back into the mind of it's controller, Captain Khalophis of the 6th Fellowship and Magister Templi of the Pyrae Cult that the Gathering followed. He was overloaded with psychic feedback, causing his body to explode with enough force to destroy most of the Pyrae temple, taking all the texts the Gathering had collected with him. Realizing this, the Gathering would cry out in hatred agains the wolves, fighting as ferociously as their foe right up until they were transported through the warp into the Planet of the Sorcerers.

Isolation and Departure
The remains of the Gathering would be closer than any others in the legion, having witnessed their brotherhood's destruction at the hands of the savages they despised, along with everything they had worked for. Locking themselves away, they would spend the remainder of their time on the warp-tainted planet trying to recover the invaluable knowledge they had lost. In the halls of their lair they would be changed by the warp, growing stronger in their psychic powers as they corrupted themselves with tainted texts in their search for power. They would grow distant from the very legion they sought to aid, speaking only to the other members of the Gathering.

The final blow for them, the one which pushed them to departing the legion to survive on their own, would come from the hand of Ahriman. As he cast the Rubric of Ahriman, the Gathering would be reduced in size once more, as only a few of them would avoid the fate of the Rubricae. Seeing this blow come from his own legion, Ankhu would become lose faith in those outside his following, and would gather the remains of the Gathering, along with the rubricae they had once studied alongside, and leave the system.

Rebirth
For years, Ankhu would lead his followers through the Eye of Terror aimlessly, for the first time in years not having a goal in mind except survival. His followers would become disillusioned with him and the bonds of fellowship that tied them together would begin to break. All that changed on the world of Jalthrax, however. Caught in the middle of a conflict between a warband of the Death Guard and a warband of World Eaters, Ankhu would reassert command over his followers, leading them away from the war, to an ancient temple hidden in the mountains of the warp-tainted world.

There, the fire within them, the hunger for knowledge and psychic power, would be rekindled. They would find a trove of ancient, heretical texts, all hinting at arcane secrets scattered throughout the galaxy, waiting to resurface. This discovery would give them purpose once more, and they would bond one more, defending the temple from attacks from both the warbands they had escaped, until they could flee with the contents of the ruins.

With a goal in mind, Ankhu would lead his followers, now calling themselves the Ashen Disciples, out of the Eye and into the galaxy, following the riddles of their sacred texts to find the secrets of that lie ripe for the taking. As they raid seemingly random worlds throughout the Imperium, the Ashen Disciples temporarily group themselves with other Tzeentch-aligned warbands, promising to let them rule over the worlds they help the Ashen Disciples conquer, using them as a distraction for the Imperium while they raid the locations of their targets and escape with them, burning all traces of their true goal to ash.

Reunited with the Legion
The wanderings of the Ashen Disciples would come to a close in 999.M41, when they were called back to the Thousand Sons by their Primarch. Despite their ten thousand years of isolation from their Primarch, the Disciples still venerated him, and would join his side once more. Now they serve as a Thrallband in the 5th Sect of the Cult of Knowledge, the Cult only complimenting their obsession with the gathering of arcane relics and texts, and their hunt for every objects whose origins are hidden in the Riddles of Jalthrax.

Notable Campaigns

 * The Black Scar incident (357.M33) - One of the rare occasions that the Ashen Disciples have openly gone to war, the Ashen Disciples emerged from the warp over the planet Fulanis, a fortress world in Ultima Segmentum. After their Acolytes of Ash failed to breach the planet, Ankhu descended with his warriors onto the city known as the Black Scar. There, they blasted apart buildings and turned the planetary defenses to ash, unleashing their pent-up anger upon the city. By the time they departed with their first relic, the city was consumed by fire, leaving a blackened scar on the planet's surface.
 * From Emerald to Ash (450.M37) - The Ashen Disciples, after their Acolytes have failed, descend on the world of Keltec, known for it's spiraling emerald-green towers, and secretly containing a relic hinted at in the Riddles of Jalthrax. By the time they leave, the emerald spirals have fallen, and the once beautiful planet is nothing but ash and warpfire, all those on it dead or mutated by the magics of Tzeentch.

Beliefs
The Ashen Disciples hunger for knowledge, and search for it across the stars. They follow the Riddles of Jalthrax, which guide them around both the immaterium and materium in search of specific arcane texts and warp-touched relics, seeking the knowledge, and therefore power, that they contain. Known as the Quest of Ashen Secrets, this journey has taken them ten thousand years, and has consumed their every thought. The quest is also used as praise for their lord Tzeentch, for he has touched the Sorcerers of the warband in their own unique ways, and the Disciples seek to repay their god for these blessings.

Gene-Seed
After the casting of the Rubric of Ahriman, the gene-seed of the Thousand Sons legion, and by extension the Ashen Disciples, was all but lost. Now, the only sources of gene-seed within the warband are the various wanderers they recruit, whose gene-seed is from multiple sources, and the sorcerers of the Disciples, and their gene-seed is so afflicted by their devotion to the warp that it's effects can only be guessed at.

The Acolytes of Ash
The Acolytes of Ash are the names given to those warbands the Ashen Disciples gather to their side when raiding a world. Varying in nearly every attribute, these warbands only share their devotion to the Architect of Fate. They are promised rule over the worlds they invade, and are let loose by the Ashen Disciples to freely corrupt whatever they touch in the name of Tzeentcb, while the Ashen Disciples pursue their true targets.

Combat Doctrine
While all Thrallbands of the Thousand Sons specialize in the use of psychic warfare, the Ashen Disciples lean heavily towards the use of warpfire, having been a part of the Pyrae Cult before the Heresy. They will deploy after the Acolytes of Ash have begun their conquest, and will annihilate anyone standing between them and their target with infernal bolters and unholy blasts of flame. They rarely deploy in large number, sometimes deploying only a single squad, but that is more than enough for their mission.

When the Ashen Disciples find it necessary to deploy in force, they do so with the intent of leaving nothing standing. With groups of Tzaangors deployed as their vanguard, the Rubricae of the Disciples overwhelm their foe with barrages of Inferno Bolts and mutate their foes with transmorphic fire, while the Sorcerers who lead them blast apart the enemy with psychic powers. Once they have retrieved their target, the Ashen Disciples leave, destroying any trace of their target so that no other force will know what they have stolen.

Notable Members

 * Ankhu Takar, The Elritch Templar - The Ashen Disciples have only ever known one leader, the incomprehensible Ankhu Takar. Known as by his enemies as the Eldritch Templar for his devotion to his quest for warp-touched texts or relics, Ankhu is inquisitive and steadfast, seeking whatever secrets that lay beyond his sight. Isolated by his quest both before and after the Heresy, he would finally see himself as a separate entity when the Rubric, instead of morphing his armor to fit the Legion, changed it to be a replica of Ahriman's old armor. Now wearing the armor of his rival, he leads his warband down their own path, knowing Tzeentch has different fate for him than that of the Thousand Sons.
 * Phol T'Kor - The second in command of the Ashen Disciples and one of the few to have Ankhu's trust, Phol T'Kor is scheming and manipulative, and his devotion to the Ashen Disciples Quest of Ashen Secrets is only surpassed by his mentor, Ankhu. He is in charge of the relations with the Acolytes, for he was the one to suggest using them in the first place. He rarely takes to the field, but when he does it is heralded by blasts of warpfire before he flies into battle atop a Disc of Tzeentch.
 * Apophitar P'Tra - A powerful Sorcerer and leader of a Scarab Occult squad, Apophitar is one of the Ashen Disciple's greatest tragedies. Once one of the most devoted to their quest before the Heresy, Apophitar would stand at Ankhu's side during the Battle of Prospero, where his life would change forever. Having been wounded and lost members of his squad, Apophitar would be fighting vigorously when Magnus would descend into battle, tearing open the sky as a thousand eyes peered down into the planet. Apophitar would make just a quick glance at the eyes, but that would be enough. Driven mad, he would speak in tongues for the rest of his life, and would descend more and more into madness with each passing year.
 * Kalophis Manahkmor - An Aspiring Sorcerer and devoted disciple of Tzeentch, Kalophis is cursed by his patron god in a most confounding way. Since the casting of the Rubric, Kalophis' every action, no matter how small, is in somehow related to the number 9. From things as small as having 9 runes on his armor to something as important and hindering as only being able to take 9 steps at a time or only killing in multiples of 9, his every action is related to the sacred number of Tzeentch, who no doubt enjoys watching his subject act.

Appearance
As with all the members of the cursed Sons of the Crimson King, the armor of the Ashen Disciples haven been warped to please the eyes of Tzeentch, with the exception of their leader.

Livery
While many of their brothers in the Thousand Sons wear some variation of the blue and yellow that became the reborn legion's livery, the Ashen Disciples have adopted their own livery, mimicking the livery that Tzeentch gifted their leader with. They now wear dark red armor and teal shoulderpads, with bronze trims.

Heraldry
While their leader's heraldry, no matter how many times he tries to remove it, is that of the legion's old heraldry, the Ashen Disciples bear their self-proclaimed 'Mark of the Disciple." This mark consists of a burning black scroll, which is said to appear as if actually burning in the eyes of non-psychic mortals. This burning scroll is an imitation of their precious Riddles of Jalthrax, and the fire a symbol of the flames of Propsero and Jalthrax, the locations of their death and rebirth.