Bulls of Retribution

The Bulls of Retribution are a Loyalist Successor Chapter descended from the lineage of the stoic and proud Imperial Fists, raised in the 38th Millennium during an unknown Founding.

Chapter History


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Inquisitor Mann,

In the centuries since your departure from Holy Terra, I have diligently followed your order to the letter, my Lord, and I trust that your continued communications with me are a demonstration that you find my work acceptable for your needs. Please find attached to this astrotelepathic communiqué a series of documents pertaining to the Bulls of Retribution Space Marine Chapter of the Gudan Sector, as requested.

I believe it would benefit you my Lord to understand that accessing this information brought me to the attention of various members of your Ordo, as well as several Inquisitors who purported to be rivals of yours. Thankfully, due to my nature as an attaché to your cohort I was spared the worst of their attentions, but I would beg my lord to cautious, clearly the secret that the Bulls of Retribution guard is one of dire import, even in an age of strife and chaos such as ours.

I pray to the God-Emperor that this message reaches you with full integrity of data, and with it, sanctity unmarred.

May the God-Emperor protect you and your works.

- Archivist Primaea

Report Begins:

It is an age of strife, and war.

Long has the Imperium been beset by enemies, both within, and without. Since the crippling of the Emperor, and the death of the Arch-traitor Horus, the Imperium has seen no end to the conflict that embroils the galaxy; on a million worlds and a billion battlefronts, the Imperium is pressed both within and without by those who desire nothing more than to finally bring about an end to the rotting, bloated carcass that is the Imperium. Hungry, alien eyes gazing from the darkness as the domain of man takes its final, laboured breaths.

Yet mankind does not intend to go quietly into the oblivion that awaits. On every battlefront across the stars, the Astra Militarum deploy men beyond counting, tides of humanity so thick as to reach the horizon thrown as bloody grist into the mill of war. Yet wherever the fighting is thickest, wherever the need is most dire, there you may find the warriors that truly exemplify the fighting spirit of mankind, there you may find, the Space Marines.

Located deep within the depths of Imperium Nihilus, on the very edge of the Astronomican's former limits, there exists a Chapter who has fought and bled for the imperium for over 4,000 years, each day of their existence mired in the blood of their enemies. To be a Space Marine, is to be an exemplar of humanity, one of the finest warriors in the species history, born to fight and die upon the eternal battle-fields of mankind with all the fury and violence of that race. The Bulls of Retribution embrace this existence, for violence and conflict ran deep through their veins long before the Imperium declared their ancestors to be worthy of apotheosis. Theirs is a brief history, yet nonetheless bloody for it, for every day has seen the chapter wage war upon the enemies of man with unremitting violence.

In this dark age, Chaos swirls all around, corrupting the minds of men, and seeking always to bend the future to come to their wills. In such a time the need of the imperium for heroes is dire, and in the benighted darkness of Imperium Nihilus, in that place where the light of the emperor is no longer to be found, the Bulls of Retribution tend and keep the flame of the Imperium alive, raging against the darkness around them even as it encroaches ever closer. In the tides of war to come, none may gainsay who will survive, if any. Yet, it is all the more for that reason now that I lay down these records. To preserve, in some small part, an ember of the spirit of man from the coming darkness.

For none but the Master of Mankind know the destiny of the human race, and upon His Golden Throne, the "Imperator-Mortifex" speaks not.

Events of Antiquity
Report, Section-One Alpha: The War in Heaven, the Formation of Gods and the ancient Aeldari.

Mankind is not alone amidst the stars.

Since the earliest days of human space-flight, mankind has shared the stars with endless streams of xenos, each as perfidious a threat to the future of man as the traitors and chaos mutants that bay at the edges of the reality, eternally hungry for the souls of men. Yet mankind is not the first race to stride the cosmos, far from it; far older and far more malevolent powers have drifted across the stellar wastes since the dawn of time. Some, like the elegant Aeldari, were once the rulers of star-bound empires of their own, their sciences so advanced as to be arcane ritual beyond even the brightest of mechanicum adepts. Others, like the barbaric orks, have scourged the galaxy from before even the earliest known records; since its first tentatives explorations beyond Sol has man had to deal with the fearsome greenskin and his ilk.

In the stygian blackness of the lost past, within the depths of those horrors contained by history, there is a conflict at the dawn of creation that shook the universe to its foundations, a war of such awesome and destructive proportions that even today the galaxy still feels the effects of the battle upon its scarred flesh. It is known as the War in Heaven. A legendary Hyper-conflict of unimaginable proportions, the War in Heaven was said to be a nightmarish war for survival and destruction between the forces of the enigmatic Old-Ones and their psychically crafted children, and those of the star-consuming C'tan, along with their enslaved hordes of necrontyr. It was a conflict that would permanently scar creation; such were the might of the weapons used and their inherently destructive nature. Planets burned, stars died, and realspace was torn to shreds beneath the psychic weight of the bloodshed and violence as it seeped into the immaterium; disturbing its placid depths for the first time.

After millennia of conflict, and countless battles lost to time, the war came to a close with the death of the old ones, the sealing of the C'tan, and the retreat of the newly forged necrons into their vast stasis tombs. Such is the nature of so distant a conflict that we have nothing more that legends and the word of xenos to rely upon, and all of my Adepta know that such things are not to be treated with any veracity, lest the chronicles of man be polluted by xenos tongues. Regardless, what we can say with some certainty is that of those races who partook in the bloodshed, only the Aeldari survived, the sole inheritors of a galaxy scourged of life. Such was the brutality of the conflict that the very warp itself had become disturbed by the horrors unleashed, twisting that once placid dimensions into the first inklings of the psychic hellscape it exists as today.

From within came boiling the first Astral predators, the first conceptions of the entities you or I would know as daemons. Multitudinous were their names; the enslaver plague, the psychnoia, the Hroxanar, yet their purpose was the same; to ravage realspace and feast on the souls of the mortals they found their. Such was it that the Aeldari spend the first millenia of their new-found isolation sealing back the rents in reality, such tasks that today would seem an impossibility achieved in seconds by a race at the very height of its psychic and technological prowess. Oceans of madness were turned back, the proto-daemons of warp-space returned to their hellish cradle to plot and scheme and curse the mortals who would deny them, yet it was during this time that the Aeldari of the ancient empire encountered what they would one day know to be the shape of the nightmare to come. It was during these benighted centuries they encountered the first warp-god.

Knowledge of the astral-predators is a dangerous thing to possess, for the mere act of knowing of such a creatures existence is enough to draw its ire from across the dimensions. Though to the common herd of the imperium, a daemon is little more than an object of superstitious fear, know only through the parable and a sermon of the ministorums preachers, there are those within the imperium to whom the duty is entrusted of not only studying these creatures, but hunting, and if needs must, capturing them for the imperiums own ends. Thus it is that mankind has come into possession of some small shard of the knowledge that is to be gleaned from studying warpspace, and the maddening entities that writhe within it like maggots through rotting flesh.

A warp God is a psychic amalgam, a confluence point at which certain emotions and psychic signatures gather by virtue of their similarity in nature and intent. To fully describe the workings of these processes would be impossible, for they are unknown to the guardians of the imperium, and to comprehend them would be to court damnation; yet by means and ways unseen, these emotions and signatures begin to compound upon each other, similar to how layer upon layer of grit solidifies through pressure to become rock, until they are not a disparate collection of psychic emanations, but a single, unified whole, seperate from the rest of warp-space and conscious as to its ability to differentiate itself from the surrounding miasma of thought and emotion.

Such confluences can only be created around precise and differentiated concepts; a nascent chaos god in development must be able to begin to differentiate itself from the unspecialised warp-energy that surrounds it if it is to take on aspects of individual conscious and identity. In the modern era, the four chaos gods of the ruinous powers are excellent examples of this, as each god is clearly and deliberately separated from its fellows by a specific fulcrum of power, modus of worship, and individual desire. However, in the primordial eras prior to, and immediately following, the War in Heaven, the nature of the Immaterium and the entities that reside within it was vastly altered to the behaviours they exhibit today.

Within the modern era of the imperium, the warp is a nightmarish and disjointed reality, a hellscape forged from the psychic trauma of a galaxy at war. Within its depths lie madness that would destroy the mind and soul in but a heart-beat, a sickly and corrupted core where dwell within the four gods of the ruinous powers, titans of madness and corruption that seek always to entrap and devour the souls of men. Yet it was not always so. If legends are to be believed, in the day before the War in Heaven the war was not a hellscape but merely an inert dimension of psychic energy that ran parallel to ours, an unearthly reflection of the physical universe mirrored in pure energy. Unlike today, the warp energy of that time could be harnessed without the soul-devouring properties of our own era, and as such could be utilised for galaxy spanning feats of engineering and grandeur, such as the legendary webway of the Old Ones. However, along with the destruction unleashed between the C'tan and the Old Ones came the first signs of corruption as well, for as the battle raged on, evermore did the emotions and turmoil of the mortals caught in the maelstrom pollute the warp with their fear and hatred, causing the first distortions of warp-space and within it the first of the proto-daemons to spawn.

For long millenia the war continued, the psychic weight pressing upon the Immaterium rising and rising as the bloodshed unleashed forever tainted its core. As the War in Heaven reached its conclusion the distortions of the warp began to reach saturation levels, and the first stirrings of ture primordial warp-gods began to rumble within the depths; for while daemons may manifest themselves around even the most simple of concepts and ideas, it takes an altogether consistent, and specific formulation of ideal and intent to form a warp god, and the long millennia of the War in Heaven had been time enough for this first nascent warp-entity to gestate within its dark womb of insanity and bloodshed. Alone, and without their creators to guide them, the Aeldari took the battle to this nascent warp-god; for even though the War in Heaven had sapped them of their strength, these were eldar of the ancient empire, their kin of the modern era but a faint shadow of the powers they once wielded, and within all the psychic knowledge of their race they warred with this creature for generations.

Of these battles we have only conjecture, as even amongst the Aledari themselves it would seem that the events themselves are merely myth, but it is told that a great warrior of the empire lured the daemon into reality by offering the honeyed treat of a star in the primary sequence of its life-cycle, a potent source of physical energy to a being that sought to dominate the material realm. Slipping into realspace, the nascent god realised too late, even as its gaping rs of metal and light. As one, the greatest psykers of the Aeldari fleet that attended the warp-god raised their voices, and such was their combined power that they managed to not only sever the daemon-gods connection to the warp, but physically bind it to the star in its totality; entrapping the beast within a perfect cage of fusion, gravity, and the roiling energies of creation. The beast howled from within its cage, cursing the mortals to damnation, yet all for nought; within its star-bound cage, the nascent warp god was utterly isolated from its source of power and left with nought to devour but itself.

The Aeldari paused only briefly to congratulate themselves on their victory before turning away, for there were many battles yet to come before they were to enter their golden age and become the true inheritors to the Old Ones. Yet for now, victory had been achieved, and though their scryers had only the briefest glimpses of the future and its twisting paths, already they could see the destiny of the eldar people altering within the sealing away of this nascent warp-god, turning from a place of darkness towards the light. Wishing to ensure that no mortal could find the star-prison without great difficulty, the Aeldari placed psychic baffles upon the star, masking its gravitational shadow within the warp and making it undetectable to all save the most skilled of empyric navigators.

From here we return to the main current of history; the Aeldari empire would rise and continue to dominate the galaxy for nearly 60 million years until their descent into decadence and the creation of their own damnation; and all the ages of man would come to pass, untroubled by the secrets that the galaxy had forgotten from those dark eons. Yet as the great crusade came to a close, and the warmaster Horus turned from the face of the father to join the Ruinous powers, daemonic tongues whispered to the traitors of weapons that could be turned on the loyalists, and of those ancient beings who could be enlisted to the cause, if only they could be released.

The Horus Heresy
Report, Section One Beta: The Horus Heresy, Naredor the Slighted

The event known as the Horus Heresy was perhaps the most defining instant in the whole history of man. Never before or since, have the actions of humanity had so drastic an effect on the course of destiny. Who could have truly predicted the sheer scale of the catastrophe the warmaster would unleash upon the galaxy? Who can dare to dream what future may have awaited if Chaos had failed to bury its claws so deeply into the primarchs mind? A full recounting of the entire event is not publically available to my Adepta, as the Ordo's of the Inquisition lay tight claim to any knowledge pertaining to that era, yet as the Archivist assigned to the creation of this report for the benefit of you, Lord inquisitor Mann, I have been given access to those documents pertaining to the events that would later transpire in the as-yet unnamed Gudan Sector.

According to those records and documents I have been able to salvage, along with the ancient reports given to me by the inquisition, the events that occurred within the Gudan sector were set into motion when the Ruinstorm was unleashed upon the galaxy. Much as the Cicatrix Maladictum would later carve the God-Emperor's Imperium in twain, the ruinstorm made travel between ultima segmentum and segmentum solar impossible, and warped reality for lightyears around with a devastating cascade of warp-energy that caused reality itself to curdle and sour. This release of nightmarish essence rippled across reality, until it poured across the surface of the ancient Aeldari star prison. Dormant for millions of years, the daemon inside had been rendered inert by the perfection of its cage, bound so tightly that not even the faintest sliver of its being could slip free, and not the smallest trickle of warp-energy feed it. Yet as the bough-wave of the ruinstorms released washed over it, the arcane-prism of the star-cage buckled over so minutely; but that tiniest instant was all the warp-god needed to spirit a insignificant shard of itself out into the greater void of the galaxy.

Seeking always to free itself from celestial confinement, and desiring nothing more than to return to warp-space so as to gestate and return to its former power; the god-shard flitted across physical reality at the speed of thought, senses alert for some means of opening its prison from without. All about, realspace had greatly altered to the dimension that had previously existed when the warp-god had last slipped into reality, existence itself having been rent and torn asunder by millions of years of further strife, war and bloodshed. Everywhere the void echoed with the daemonic taint of the immaterium; bleeding through to make a mockery of physics and distort creation; Not the as-yet fully untainted energy that the nascent god had been reared on, but wholly and fully bent to the maddening whims of the ruinous powers. Realising this energy was tainted sufficiently for its purpose, and that should it be able to apply sufficient levels of this energy to prison that it would shatter in its entirety, the god-shard determined that it needed only to find a focus point through which to deliver such a tides of the warp, and a mortal with the cruelty and will to facilitate such a ritual.

Fortunately for the God-shard, at the time of its escape, the dire events of the horus heresy were unfurling across the length and breadth of the galaxy, and there were more than enough damned souls seeking leverage over the loyalists who would listen all to willingly to a voice from the warp. Thus it was that the god-shard found its way to the bridge of the Night-lord battle barge Writhing Wyrm, and whispered honeyed promises into the ears of the chaotic sorcerer it found there; Naredor the Slighted. Seeking to indulge himself with the warmasters inner circle, and knowing that Horus Lupercal sought a great weapon to aid in the invasion of Terra, Naredor listened with mounting, horrific glee as the god-shard laid out the requirements for the breaking of its chains. Naredor needed only to locate and capture an Alpha-Primaris psyker, an incredibly rare and power individual, and bring it to the Gudan sector, where he would conduct a ritual that would open the star-cage the smallest fraction and allow the warp-god inside to possess the psyker, who would then use the mortal puppet to force open the rest of the cage and return once more to devour realspace. Realising the glorious potential of the plan, and ruminating privately about what reward such a creature would have for the mortal that freed it, Naredor the slighted gathered those battle-brothers under his command and set out with a fleet of ships to hunt for the required alpha-primaris psyker, the vast battle barge Writhing Wyrm at the fleets head. For several long months the Night Lords Traitors conducted raids and skirmishes against imperial facilities along the edge of the ultima segmentum, striking those locations where the loyalists could possibly contain such a creature; as the powers of an alpha-primaris psyker are beyond even their own ability to control, and only a handful of installations would have had the equipment available safely keep such a being contained. As the final year of the heresy dawned Naredor finally located his quarry within a classified imperial facility upon the barren psy-moon of Kaelix, whose surface was riven by psychically reactive crystalline materials.

Slaughtering all within, Naredor abducted the raving psyker from her shielded cell, and spirited her back to the Writhing Wyrm that awaited in orbit. By the time elements of the Imperial Fists, which had been operating in the area, responded to the installations distress hymnal, the trail of Naredo had grown near-cold.

Battle of Gudan
Report Section One Gamme: Captain Tarsus and the Battle of Gudan'''

Under normal circumstances, picking up a warp-trail so old would have been a fool's errand, yet Captain Tarsus of the Imperial Fists, fresh from his battles with the Traitors and their newly found daemonic allies, was all to aware of the destructive potential of a psyker as a weapon, and considerably alarmed by the prospects of such traitors fielding a alpha-primaris psyker against loyalist forces; such a weapon would be nigh-impossible to oppose, and even then only a great cost. Charging his navigator with locating Naredor warband, the Imperial Fists dived head-fist into the warp, baying at Naredors trail like bloodhounds to a scent. The journey was a battle in and of itself, as the path of Naredor led to the very furthest limits of the Astronomican's light, and so far from the guidance of Terra's holy beacon, the warp was a nightmarish maze that threatened to consume the loyalist with every jump.

Only thanks to the legendary determination of the gene-sire did the sons of Dorn survive, even as some ships of the fleet were lost entirely to the tides of the immaterium. Until, at last, the Navigator reported the presence of a warp-shadow in the immaterium, the tell-tale signature of a stars gravitational bulk as it pulled at reality; though this signature was so small that it seemed to barely register. Trusting his gut instinct, Tarsus ordered his ships to drop out of warp-space, and was rewarded with his faith with the sight of Gudans primary star burning in the void, bright and flushed in the main-sequence of its life-cycle. For the first time, the forces of the Imperium beheld the Gudan system, and there, pinging on the Auspex scans as they ranged out ahead of the fleet, was Writhing Wyrm in high orbit above the star.

Ordering his battle-brothers to prepare for boarding actions, Tarsus ordered his battle-group to ready formation and engage the enemy. The forces of the Night Lords had arrayed themselves in a protective formation around Writhing Wyrm, shielding the battle-barge from enemy fire. This gave Tarsus pause, as a battle-barge is a great tactical asset in void combat, and for the traitors to do anything other than place the vessel at the head of their formation struck the captain as simply wrong. Realising that something of a fouler nature beyond his comprehension was afoot, Tarsus ordered his body-guard to make ready; he would personally lead the assault upon Writhing Wyrm, and discover for himself the intentions of his traitorous brethren. Forming his battle-group into a spearhead formation, Tarsus ordered his fleet to punch into the heart of the enemy and disable Writhing Wyrm; seeking to cut the rotten heart from the Night Lords operation and put a halt to their plans.

The void rippled with plasma fire as the two fleets approached engagement distance; macro-batteries and lance positions exchanging salvo after salvo as the Imperial Fists plunged into the heart of the enemy, led by Tarsus' own command ship; the battle-barge Penitence. Forcing aside the Night Lords shielding elements, the imperial fleet broke through the enemy formation, Penitence spitting death as she unleashed her full complement of melta torpedoes upon Writhing Wyrm, the salvo fired too close for the enemy ship to outmanoeuvre. Crippling his enemy with a single blow, Tarsus ordered the Boarding torpedoes launched, rocketing across the void with his men to pierce the vessel adamtine hull and bring death to those within. Yet even as the Astartes raced towards their target, the star beneath them was rent open.

Unbeknownst to the Imperial Fists, Naredor was wholly preoccupied with his ritual, even as the void-battle raged about the Writhing Wyrm. At the very same instant as Tarsus crossed to the enemy ship, Naredor had managed to work open the smallest weakness of the star-cage, and rising from within came the essence of the bound warp-god, eager and hungry to possess the alpha-primaris psykers flesh and fully release itself to terrorise reality once more. Staining the pure fire the of Gudan Star with its taint, the Daemon began to bind itself to the mind of the psyker, puppeting the mortal as a focus for its own energy, seizing the star-cage, and forcing ever wider open.

Baying with victory, Naredor believed the deed to be all but done, until the boarding torpedo of captain Tarsus came punching through the Writing Wryms adamantine hull, delivering the loyalists into the very heart of the enemy. Instantly battle raged as loyalist and traitor fought with the hatred only brothers know, slaughtering one another with wild fury. Sighting the alpha-primaris psyker at the back of the melee, eyes alight with daemonic power and flesh pulsing with unnatural energy, Tarsus realised that his forces may have already been to late to prevent the traitors machinations coming to fruition. Discarding the notion of personal survival, Tarsus laid into the enemy with furious abandon, his warhammer buckling plate and dashing skulls as it forged a path for his brothers through the traitor scum.

Seeing the Loyalist captain inch ever closer, and knowing the ritual was yet to complete, naredor threw himself into the path of the Imperial fist, unleashing the entirety of his psychic might upon Tarsus; tearing the flesh from half his skull with a single, horrific projection of power. Tarsus staggered under the blow, half his face flensed clean, and the bone beneath crushed and pulped, blood seeping from every orifice as he collapsed to his knees. About him his bodyguard sought to intervene, circling about their captain for his defense even as they were cut down in the bloody melee. Above them all the psyker began to steadily rise, her flesh tearing and pulsing where the power of the daemon spurred unnatural growth and mutation, the Writhing Wyrm itself screaming with strain as warp energy began to radiate through its very being; the ritual approaching its final, terrifying conclusion.

Knowing he had but seconds remaining, Tarsus rose to his feet, lurching from left to right as his pulped brain struggled to function so close to death. Unleashing from his chest one final, fearsome roar of defiance, Tarsus charged forward even as Naredor cut down the last of his bodyguard, his thunder-hammer smashing aside the Chaos Sorcerer before, with the last of his energy, Tarsus pulled back his arm and launched the weapon skyward, the hammer spinning end over end before it flat head plowed straight into the chest of the alpha-primaris psyker, the accompanying release of energy from the blow ripping her daemonically possessed body apart. As the raging screams of the daemon rang through the void, Tarsus realised he had achieved victory, and allowed a savage bark of laughed to cross his bloodied lips before he was felled by Naredor; slumping lifeless to the deck of the Writhing Wyrm with his brethren.

In the instant of the psyker's death, the gaping wound of the star-cage snapped shut, the daemon raging within as its plan was foiled. Within the dead husk of the psyker, the god-shard that had slipped free desperately searched for a new living host to survive, and seized upon the first escape it saw; the psychically active mind of Naredor. Possessing the chaos sorcerer, the god-shard howled with fury as the loyalist forces brought ruin to the remaining ships of the Night Lords fleet, Writhing Wyrms shield elements falling like wheat before the scythe. Yet even as freedom slipped from its grasp, the god-shard realised that enough of its essence had bonded with the alpha-primaris psyker to infuse its mortal host with the ability to open its star-cage regardless of psychic ability, and that if it could affect an escape there remained yet the possibility of returning at a later date.

Seizing control of Naredors confused and desperate warband, the god-shard ordered Writhing Wyrm to break from the battle, make for the systems mandeville point, and jump into the warp, leaving the remaining nightlord ships to die in the face of the loyalist onslaught. A cowardly move, but befitting of the slaves of chaos. From here Writhing Wyrm would disappear from history for millenia, returning over the centuries across the imperium as a vast and ever-growing space hulk, each appearance rendering more twisted than each one previous.

The Settlement of Gudan
Report Section One Delta: The Settlement of Gudan

In the wake of the battle, and the death of their captain, the Imperial Fists recorded the incident within their archives, gathered their honoured dead, and left the Gudan System for holy Terra, seeking to reunite with their battle-brothers for the final confrontation against horus. Though they had emerged from the battle victorious, none of the survivors were aware as to the full nature of what had unfurled upon the Writhing Wyrm, and no survivors had returned from the vessel before it disengaged with the loyalist forces to tell the tale. Yet still, many had witnessed the gaping wound in the Gudan Star, and had also seen it snap shut in a mere instant, and all knew something of dire import had been prevented by their captain, even if the specifics of his valour could not be committed to the records of the chapter.

Though the reports made by the Imperial Fists were marked as high priority for investigation upon their reunion with the imperium, it would be centuries yet before the new formed inquisition would being an investigation as to the exact nature of the Gudan star and what the night lords had sought to achieve there. First the imperium would have to bear the great loss of the emperor, his primarchs, and the death of hope for the future of mankind. It would not be until M32 that an an imperial ship, the inquisition vessel gallow-tree, returned to the Gudan System.

The investigation by the Inquisition yielded many interesting, and dire, results for the imperium to contend with. The first of which was that contained within the Gudan star was what could only be described as a proto-warp-god, an unrefined, devolved form of the four ruinous powers that had laid low the master of mankind and fouled the destiny of the human race. From trace energy left in high orbit around the debris of the Night Lords fleet, the Inquisitors were also able to determine that some small piece of the daemon-god had been able to slip loose of its prison, and likely escaped out into the wider void of the galaxy. Knowing that this left the possibility of the traitors returning to the system a wholly likely reality the inquisition moved for immediate settlement of the Gudan System as a bastion facility, designed with the sole intention of fortifying the star and holding at bay those forces that sort to release the prisoner from its cage.

Under normal circumstances settlement so close to a daemonic entity would have been impossible, yet such was the perfection of the star-cage that the daemons corruption was totally contained, and those worlds in orbit of the start existed without mutation or devicancy. Another aiding factor to such colonisation was revealed when auspex scans uncovered the ruins of human structures from the dark age of technology upon the surface of Gudan Prime, a planet within the star's goldilocks zone, and that a viable human population had existed there for over six thousand years of isolation without major deviancy from baseline humanity.

So it was that in M33 an Imperial crusade was launched to establish the Gudan Sector, with the Gudan system, and star, at its very heart, shielded from traitor influence by whole star-systems dedicated to its defence. Though the fact that the sector existed solely to protect a daemonic star was known to only a handful within the ordo malleus and the planetary governor of Gudan Prime, the sector flourished, and for five thousand years was a bastion of loyalty and faith on the further edges of the Ultima Segmentum, guarding the emperors domain against those horrors from beyond his light. The centuries slipped by, and as all things are, the exact nature of the creature that slumbered within the Gudan star was lost to history, known only to those scribes charged with keeping the records in the vast vaults of terra. Only the Imperial Fists truly remembered what had occurred in high orbit above the star, and the name Writhing Wyrm.

So it was in 025.M38, when the Space Hulk was sighted breaking warp in the Gudan Sector the Sons of Dorn responded with all haste. For four chaotic gods already assailed the imperium, and they knew that were a fifth to join their number, the balance would be irrevocably turned to the forces of madness and carnage.

Report Ends: Beginning projection of astrotelepathic communication to Bastion Tarvial, Ultima Segmentum; Tarsus Sector

...Transmitting

...Transmitting

...Transmitting

Transmission successful, augurs indicate 46.2% chance of message arrival with data integrity intact. These odds are deemed acceptable.

Powering down astrotelepathic transmitter.

Returning to hibernation status...

The God-Emperor protects.

Founding
The first entry pertaining to the Bulls of Retribution within the Imperial archives was created in approximately chrono-segment 025.M38, long before the actual creation of the organisation, with the record itself referring to a conflict upon the future Chapter’s homeworld of Gudan. If the records are to be considered accurate (a true rarity in this era of chaos, though the machine spirit of Chronogitator is quite adamant as to their accuracy) those individuals who would found the chapter were originally the leaders of a vicious gang known as the ' Horns of Gudan ', which as a major political player on their homeworld was in control of vast regions of territory and valuable resources.

If local legends are to be believed, the Chapter was founded after a long and brutal campaign, now forgotten to history, which was waged throughout the sector. During this campaign, it is said, the Imperial Fists fought the Traitor Legion of the Night Lords, and the fighting was brutal in the extreme. Many worlds throughout the sector were put to the torch, and untold billions slaughtered in the name of the Dark Gods. When the Imperial Fists attempted to respond to a traitor invasion of Gudan, they found upon planetfall that they were not the only humans fighting to defend the populace of that world.

The Horns of Gudan, though only a loose coalition of tribes and hive gangs, had risen in force against the traitor invaders, casting aside their petty gang wars and turf disputes to instead rally against the warp horrors that encroached upon their home. So successful was this defensive action that the Night Lords had been unable to breach the inner defences of the capital hive, Hive Vaxilian, and the vast majority of the populace there had been saved from fates worse than death. The Sons of Dorn held these humans in high regard, for they'd fought against Heretic Astartes of the Ruinous Powers with nothing more than blood, autoguns, and steel, and against all the odds had succeeded. Following the war, the Imperial Fists made Gudan a recruiting world, building a Chapter Keep at the pinnacle of the highest spire of the planets greatest hive city; Hive Vaxilian. By 564.M38 the region had become stabilised enough that the High Lords of Terra deemed a new Founding was required to defend the burgeoning sector, and Imperial Fists knew just the world, and just the gang, suitable for the task.

The transformation of a loose coalition of vicious hive-gangers into what would one day become a full-fledged Chapter of Space Marines was a task considered almost ludicrous by the High Lords of Terra, who deemed that such lowlifes were surely not worthy of the emperors most precious gift to mankind. Though there is no official documentation of what happened next, legend has it that upon hearing such a slight to those the Chapter had personally praised, the captain of the 4th Company stationed upon Holy Terra became greatly angered, and promptly made his disagreement with the High Lords' ruling personally known while they sat in chambers; for though by Imperial decree only the High Lords might decide upon those who shall be beneficiaries of the Emperor's gene-seed, very rarely does a Chapter directly put forward a specific group of baseline humans as candidates, and for such a candidacy to be rejected in so insulting a manner roused the famed fury of the Imperial Fists to no end.

So it was, that the Horns of Gudan were selected to become the first members of the Bulls of Retribution, the chaplains of the Imperial Fists selecting only the strongest and most cunning of their number to be reforged by the apothecaries gene-science into true Adeptus Astartes. Over a century later, and gifting to the Bulls of Retribution the Chapter Keep atop Hive Vaxilian, the Imperial Fists departed the sector, leaving the newly marshalled Bulls of Retribution to begin their watch. Almost instantly the Chapter was required to make great deployments of marines; such was the nature of living on the outermost limits of the Astronomican's light, yet they did not turn from their duties, and for the next 4 millennia, waged unending war in the God-Emperor's name.

Return of the Night Lords
The next preserved record of the Bulls actions was logged by the infamous Archivist Uriah the Singed in chrono-segment 002.M39, stating that Gudan was besieged by the Night Lords Traitor Legion, who launched a vicious and brutal campaign of destruction, terror, and carnage upon the populace. Rallying the PDF forces of the planet, the then-Chapter Master Arcturous led an inspired counter-assault that saw the night-lords routed on several vital and strategically important fronts, culminating in the battle of Starport Vexillius, where the traitors to the golden throne had established their base of operations, and sought to flee back into orbit. Knowing that time was of the essence, and that if the foe were to escape other worlds would suffer as Gudan had, Arcturous, led a charge straight up the center of the enemy line, using the wrath of the Gudan Bull itself to rend and gore his way through the great enemy, before, in a feat of super-human strength, he seized the head of the arch-traitor warlord in his gauntleted hands, and ripped his skull from his body, spine and viscera flying in all directions. Seeing their lord butchered so brutally, the night-lords were routed.

Reclamation of a Lost Relic
In chrono-segment 763.M39, the Bulls of Retribution, were dispatched upon the request of the Imperial Fists to reclaim an ancient relic of the chapter, the Reliquary of Dorn, lost to it for millennium upon the planet of Mercinus XVII, within the Gudan Sector. A fiefdom-planet of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Mercinus XVII had been the location of a bitter battle between a contingent of Imperial Fists and Night Lords during the Horus Heresy, and legend held that Dorn himself had strode the planet in that distant age.

Descending into the cave networks that riddled the planet's crust, Chapter Master Arcturous led his battle-brothers deeper and deeper into the darkness, searching every nook and cranny they could find for the relic. However, it wasn't until they stumbled upon an enormous, pitch-black cavern that the Bulls found their target, resting amidst the remains of a crusade-era stasis field. Yet no sooner had they begun to move the Reliquary from its resting place before the Bulls were assailed with the screams of Night Lords Heretic Marines, who launched a savage ambush.

As the fighting raged, Arcturous realised these Night Lords were the same as those who had besieged Gudan a near millennium earlier, and felt fierce hatred rise within him. Raising his power-axe high, Arcturous roared the battle cry of the Bulls of Retribution, before lowering his horned helm and charging into the fray, goring his enemies left and right. The melee was lighting fast, an in what seemed an instant the chapter master locked his axe with the blade of the traitor warlord who let the Chaos Astartes. The Night Lord made for a quick-witted and barbaric opponent, nearly gutting Arcturous with his twin lightning claws; sparks flying as they sheared the tactical armour he wore and sent the Chapter Master to his knees.

Yet before the darkness could seize him and his strength fled, Arcturous let out the deafening roar of the Gudan Bull and leapt forward with one last surge of might, goring through the baroque battle-plate of the Chaos Lord to skewer his two hearts on lances of ivory. With a wordless scream, Arcturous rose to full height, the traitor lord sinking ever deeper onto his horns before the Chapter Master tossed the Chaos Astartes aside with the mere flick of his neck. Seeing their lord's vitae flowing from his gaping wounds, the Night Lords felt terror race up their spines as Arcturous rallied his men and led a charge into the surviving Night Lords. The traitors turned tail and fled, and the Reliquary of Dorn was secured, yet it came at a high price; Chapter Master Arcturous did not survive long enough to return to the surface alive, but his body was born with greatest solemnity back to Gudan, there to be buried with full honours alongside the greatest heroes of the Chapter. Upon receipt of the Reliquary, and hearing of the valour of Arcturous, it is declared by the Imperial Fists that his name shall be entered into the Annals of Dorn, the Chapter's record of only the greatest sons of Dorn. To the Bulls of Retribution, there is no higher honour.

A Dire Warning
After the passing of Arcturous into legend, the Bulls of Retribution spent the next millennia persecuting vicious conflicts against the Night Lords, driving them from the sector, and re-establishing the chapters supremacy within the Gudan Sector. Many decades pass, with almost no confirmed sightings of the Night Lords before 771.M40. During this time, a garbled psychic message from beyond the Light of the Astronomican was intercepted by the Astropathic choir based upon Gudan. As to the contents of the later, we cannot say, but records state that upon the instant of reception a full third of the choir collapsed in maddening death throes and a psychic scream of utter horror tore through their minds.

Only Chapter Master Galrov and his innermost circle of Astartes are privy to the message's contents, yet before the information is released to the wider Chapter, Galrov takes three companies of Bulls of Retribution and sets course into the darkness beyond the Emperor's light. The Chapter Master maintains psychic communications with Gudan for several chrono-segments, before simply disappearing into the void without a trace - the fleet's final message making vague references to ' Stars that bleed ' and ' Writhing Wyrms beneath the flesh. '

From this bizarre and most certainly horrifying incident onwards, there is scant information regarding the deployment of the Chapter’s Astartes and their disposition. Indeed, following the disappearance of chapter master Galrov, the Bulls of Retribution see no further entries into the Imperial archives for nearly a millennium, their activities during this time of darkness known only to the current chapter master Ilyanus.

The Writhing Wyrm
Indeed, it is not until 863.M41 that reference is made once again to the Chapter, though in this record they are mentioned only in passing. Approximately one century earlier from the date of entry, the Space-hulk designated Writhing Wyrm had been sighted breaking into realspace in the Gudan Sector for the first time. Previously the hulk had followed a seemingly erratic path through reality, slipping into, and being let loose from, the Immaterium in locations and times without rhyme or reason. Indeed, whilst attempting to access the Ordo Xenos' reports on the hulk I have found references to it as early as M32, with possible inferences to the self-same ship in records that are older still, yet too decayed for precise confirmation.

Yet though for all its previous life it had been a capricious wreck, once it dropped into realspace within the Gudan sector, Writhing Wyrm began a direct and powered course towards Gudan itself, filling the void with electromagnetic and psychic disturbances as it approached the systems lagrange point, causing those void-going ships who encountered the emissions to become stricken with the horrific disease known as Gellar-Pox. It is not until Writhing Wyrm arrives at the outermost point of the Gudan System that the terror of what awaits within the space-hulk is revealed. Broadcasting upon all vox channels and Noospheric links, the citizens of Gudan were met with the visage of a horrifically mutated beast, one whose flesh seemed to have run like tallow wax. Only to the Bulls of Retribution is the identity of this sickly creature known. It is the Bulls' former Chapter Master, Galrov.

Almost as soon as the recognition of that disturbed visage crossed the mind of Chapter Master Koriolov, who had been appointed to lead the Bulls of Retribution only a handful of decades earlier, the Chapter Master took swift and decisive action. Placing a ban upon all civilian void travel within the system, to contain the Gellar-Pox Writhing Wyrm carried within her, Koriolov summoned all combat-capable void-ships to high orbit above Gudan before breaking for the system's edge, seeking to intercept and destroy the hulk with cyclonic weaponry before it can pierce into the heart of the system. The initial approach began with ill manner, as those vessels crewed by the imperial navy suffered mass onset of Gellar-Pox, the baseline humans who crewed the vessel too weak in mind and body to bare the warps corrupting influence. only those vessels belonging to the Bulls of Retribution were hardy enough to establish orbit around the hulk and begin the bombardment. Yet such efforts were for naught.

Though the cyclonics were able to cause immense damage to the hulks outer superstructure, the vessel was an excellent example of its kind, and for every armoured layer of mangled void-ship that was stripped away with nucleonic fire, another was revealed beneath. Not only that, but auspex returns suggested that Galrov has based himself within the hulks very core, and that even if the fleet had possessed cyclonics sufficient to completely eradicate the Writing Wyrm, the rate of destruction, and the speed at which the hulk made its way to the star at the heart of the Gudan System, meant that there was not forced Chapter Master Koriolov to commit his marines to a boarding action.

Notable Campaigns

 * Founding of the Bulls (564.M38): Founding of the Chapter by order of Terra with Imperial Fist gene-seed.
 * Gudan Sector Invasion (002.M39): Newly appointed chapter master Arcturous leads the Bulls of Retribution against the Night Lords and repels them from Gudan.
 * Reclamation of a Lost Relic (763.M39): Arcturous leads his brethren to claim the Reliquary of Dorn, the mission succeeds but at the cost of his life.
 * A Dire Warning (771:M40): A garbled message from beyond the Light of the Astronomican causes Chapter Master Galrov to lead three companies of the Bulls into the darkness beyond the Emperor's light. He and his Space Marines never return.
 * Corrida De Toros (437.M41): In 437.M41 a battlegroup of the Bulls of Retribution and their Horns of Gudan Aucilia are deployed to the benighted world of Kuresh after the planet spends several months facing fierce piratical raids. Upon arrival the Bulls of Retribution realise that it is no mere pirate force they contend with, but a warband of Bradock's fierce Night Lords Heretic Astartes. Over a period of months the battle-group is slowly worn down by guerilla attacks... (More to be added...)
 * The Writhing Wyrm (863:M41): The space-hulk Writhing Wyrm breaks from the warp at the Gudan System's edge, Chapter Master Korlieve Is killed when he is dismembered by a Genestealers Patriarch in a flash of blades and claws. His second-in-command, Ilyanus, rallies his brothers and performs a successful purge of the Hulk, reclaiming several valuable pieces of Archeotech for the chapter's armoury.
 * The Imperium Nihilus (999:M41): The Cicatrix Maledictum tears the galaxy in two, a large rent in the fabric of reality through which madness bleeds and the Emperor's light is snuffed out. Gudan, being on the far edge of the newly dubbed Imperium Nihilus, descends into Chaos, the Bulls of Retribution fights bitterly on all fronts.
 * Salvation of the Gudan System 112:M42): After centuries of isolation, the siege of the Gudan System is finally relieved by elements of the disbanding Indomitus Crusade, who bring with them the newly forged Primaris Marines.

Gudan Sector
The Gudan Sector, like many others within the imperium, is rife with enigma, mystery, and unsolved horror. From the great Star Cage of Gudan itself, to the fabled wreckage of Craftworld Kaliana, and the legendary Rings of Ilium, many are those places within the Gudan Sector that one may find relics of an ancient and by-gone time, their creators lost to history like so much else. From its furthest reaches, to the Gudan System itself, vast, elegant, and shattered remains of an ancient aeldari civilisation bestride the stars, the settlements of man built over the ruins of temples to extinct gods, and cities blasphemous xenos.

The following is a list of the worlds of the Gudan Sector:

Star Whisperer
Status: Perdita Extremis Population: 0 Tithe Grade: Adeptus Non Locations: undefined Further Information: Classified by orders of the inquisition

Guardian
Status: Bastion World Population: 200,000 Tithe Grade: Adeptus Non Locations: Star Fortress Koriolov, Star Fortress Maximus Further Information: See tag-file Locus (designate-59632)

Mineralus
Status: Adeptus Mechanicus Outpost World Population: 12,000 Mechanicum members/ Approx 2,000,000 labourers Tithe Grade: Decuma Particular Locations: Epsilon Q-736, Epsilon F-243, Delta 946, Omnicron 503 Moons: Mineralus Alpha, Mineralus Omega, locked in binary orbit. Further Information: Provides the majority of war materials and resources required for the chapter to operate.

The Shattered Halo
Status: minor colonisation efforts Population: Approx 340,000 Tithe Grade: Adeptus Non Locations: Port Grime, Asteroid Q-E7U-9OL Further Information: Over 48 quarantine zones are currently active within the Shattered Halo by orders of the Inquisition.

Censure
Status: Gas-giant, settlements established upon Clamor Population: Approx 300,000 Tithe Grade: Solutio Prima Locations: Starport Vahlia, Hive-Sprawl Ukrov Moons: Clamor; settled world. Silentium; Death World, Quarantine extremis. Further Information: High Volume of Inquisition activity tracked upon Silentium, purpose currently unknown.

Aries
Status: Gas-giant Population: 4,000 Tithe Grade: Adeptus Non Locations: Orbital refinery Velora Further Information: See tag-file corok (designate-67832)

Arcturous
Status: Bastion World Population: 30,000 Tithe Grade: Adeptus Non Locations: Shipyard Stroyika, Star Fortress Tarsus Further Information: Arcturous serves as a defensive bastion, guarding the primary approaches from the systems mandeville point towards its heart.

Gudan Prime
Status: Chapter Homeworld Population: Approx 40,000,000 as of last census Tithe Grade: Decuma Prima Locations: Hive Vaxillian, Starport Vexillius, Castra Bovem, The Arena of Fury, Cathedra Primus, Star-Spire The Iron Cradle. Moons: Gudan Secundus Further Information: Current chapter strength stands at approximately 800 marines supported by 8 sanctioned regiments of the Horns of Gudan.

Chapter Recruitment
According to the chronicles stored in the vaults of Terra, the entrance trial of the Bulls of Retribution is a simple, singular task, yet one that is no less dangerous for its simplicity. Aspirants who wish to join the Chapter must venture into the wilds beyond the few equatorial hives, out into the harsh waterless barrens of the worlds mesas and plateaus to hunt and kill a Gudan Bull, a fierce and wild beast said to be distantly descended from Terran livestock brought by the original Golden Age settlers. It is no simple task, for the creatures are greatly altered from the original animals brought from Terra and are famed planet-wide for their ability to gore open even the armoured slabs of a Leman Russ main battle tank. The Aspirants need only kill the beast and return with its head to the Chapter's Chapter Keep. It is a task few succeed in.

Chapter Beliefs
Although they are righteous enemies of those who oppose the will of Terra, the Bulls of Retribution do not associate with baseline humanity, and at best view them with mild indifference, and at worst view them as an impediment. Though their Chapter Keep is located on at the peak of a grand hive-spire, the Astartes of the Chapter maintain strict segregation between themselves and the humans of Gudan. Even the number of chapter serfs within the fortress is kept to a bare minimum; yet this is not the only place where the Chapter separates itself from the herd of man. When dispatched to a warzone, the Bulls of Retribution will openly cooperate only with other Astartes chapters, scorning the men of the Imperial Guard, and seeking wherever possible, to ensure that the units of the Astra Militarum do not interfere with their mission and its completion.

Relations
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Allies

 * Black Templars


 * Minotaurs


 * Void Lions

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Enemies

 * Night Lords

Notable Quotes
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