Editing Nobledark Imperium Primarchs (section)

== Leman Russ ==


<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">'''''The Great Wolf''''' - or ''The Lapdog:''

The story of Leman Russ starts in the land of Skand, among the Nordyc peoples. He was born to a woman called Ragna, who was considered to be wise, if not especially beautiful, by the clans and so her affections were oft courted. Russ’ father was Thengir, tribal king of the Kalararit people. That his mother and father were not married was seen as not particularly odd by the peoples of Skand. Especially when his father was Thengir.

Russ’ education was about as formal as it was ever going to get among a tribe of fishermen, semi-raiders and occasional traders. Although most Kalararit men did not become warriors as a full time profession, all were expected to be able to fight in times of need. It was in this pursuit that Russ found his calling, for the ways of war came easy to him. He grew tall and broad at the shoulders, with powerful musculature and boundless stamina. He became well-versed in the care and maintenance of his tribe's weapons, from autoguns to the humble war axe. He was peerless in the execution of ambush warfare on land and boarding actions upon the cold seas. Sadly, the ways of the scholar did not come as readily to his mind. Although by no means unintelligent, Russ did not — especially in his youth — have the temperament for understanding the needs of large-scale or long-term expeditions.

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In time, Russ grew to be the strong right hand of King Thengir — who had lost his own literal right hand some years previously, in a bitter and bloody dispute with the former King Clovis Fouché of Franj. This hatred of the Franj would never leave him, for Russ could be very stubborn.

The men and women of the Kalararit respected Russ — who could be quite charming, in a blunt sort of way. Russ did take his first wife by own choice, rather than at his father’s insistence. Linnea was probably the one part of softness in Russ’ life, and possibly the only thing in later years that held his bloodlust in check. Many of the Kalararit suspected that she possessed more wisdom than he. She certainly possessed great patience.

It was when Russ was still a young man that a foreigner in dusty grey robes came to his father’s thatched hall with offerings — of strong wine, silks, and laser rifles — in chests with lightning bolt heraldry upon them. His companions were strange, for their armour was of a sort not seen in the lands of Skand or its neighbours; they were silver and matte grey, segmented with face covering helmets. The foreigner walked with the aid of a stick with a metal eagle perched atop it, and was accompanied by a giant dressed in the manner of a common man. This was the first time that Russ saw the man who would soon be know to Old Earth as The Warlord.

Some time into the deliberations between the robed man and the king, another giant — this one dressed in the manner of a wandering shaman — strode into the hall, and was called over by the first giant to sit beside him. At the time Russ thought little of it, and just assumed it not unreasonable that a giant would have giant kin. This was the first he saw of Magnus the Red — and many times down the centuries he wished it had been the last.

Over the next few months, other tribal chieftains and kings found themselves drawn to the hall of Thengir the Cripple. Much was discussed, marriages were arranged, oaths sworn, and gifts exchanged. It was disconcerting for Russ; to the young warrior's mind, the world was changed by strong men doing great deeds — with blood and iron and sweat. But here he watched as old men and scribes carved up the world, and told the future how it was going to be.

This — he thought as he looked at the maps and the increasingly long lists being drawn — this was true power. One great warrior could do great deeds, but this was something rather more lasting.

There were some — tribes, clans, and petty little kingdoms — that would not entertain the notions of peace. They saw the plans of Malcador and The Warlord for what they were; the soft subjugation, capitulation, compromise, and surrender of the signatories. They had pride, they had their principles — for it was the strong who dominated the weak — and they would not roll over and submit. They left the great hall of the Kalararit, and never again would they be welcomed there.

Of the tribes that were incapable of seeing reason long enough to join this new alliance, all were left behind to die in their old world of savagery — by one means or another. Most simply withered and died, as the Nordyc peoples formed a true nation and they could no longer attract new blood — for all their young had left to find new work and new lives, in the rebuilt cities of Gamsta and Akershus and the reclaimed and prosperous farmlands that surrounded them.

Few were foolish enough to outright attack the fledgling Imperium. Few but still some. These tribal savages were brought to ruin by the Nordyc men who insisted — nay demanded — that it be they who dealt with this problem, for all that they were they had once been friends and brothers all. As with the Old Ways, the warriors and kings of the barbarian tribes were slain; their women and children assimilated into the more prosperous tribes to be cared for, and their lands given to young Skandish men and women looking to found tribes of their own. It would be the last time this old law of conquest would ever be practiced by the people of Skand. Russ was present at the closing of that era, smoking and pungent with the fresh blood of the slain though it was. It was not a thing in which he found any joy, but he knew it had to be done.

It was from some unremembered tribe — slain by his hand, no less — that he obtained his second wife. Febronia had been a court slave kept by a petty chief too lazy to learn basic literacy, and thus she was fluent in an improbably large number of languages — both written and spoken — and passable in many others. Not of the Nordyc peoples herself, but a former slave bought from exotic climes, Febronia's marriage was nevertheless at the insistence of Russ' aging father — Russ, after all, was a wealthy warrior of the nobility and it was his duty to care for the slain.

Linnea was, to her credit, understanding of the situation. It was the way of things for her people in that era, even though that era was drawing to a close. In time she and Febronia became good friends. It was often joked by Russ' companions that he preferred the battlefield to the hearth of home, as he felt less outnumbered. Between them, Russ and his wives had many children — but by some fluke of genetics and chance they had only birthed daughters.

It was at about this time that the Thunder Warrior program was being phased out. The two alternate branches of Super Soldier production that the Imperium was perusing were the Canis Helix project and the Astartes project.

The first test subjects of both yielded positive results, but ultimately Russ volunteered for the former as it would complement and enhance his own strengths. By pure chance, he was spared the crippling mutations and biological failures that plagued those that took this choice in the years that followed. Indeed, he was one of only a handful of successes, and the only other to have survived both the Canis Helix tests and the passage of time was Bjorn "Fellhanded" of Kraken Bay.

Although the "Dog Soldiers" — as the Canis Helix super soldiers came to be derogatorily known as — fought magnificently and ferociously, the failure rate and the nature of the failures was too much for the Warlord to accept. The whole project was scrapped, its resources given over to the more reliable Super Soldier branches.

As time and war ground onward, the Nordyc regiments earned both fame and infamy, for they were brutally effective but, The Warlord felt, with too much emphasis placed upon brutal. Much like the bloody antics of Curze and the calculated atrocities of Mortarion, this was permitted under sufferance. Victory was always afforded some leeway, and the wars were only ever a means to an end — and Russ's carnage was expediting that end.

The Skandish raised regiments — the newly minted Wolves of the North — in the final days of the wars with the Ursh-Pacific union, and were found to be more suited to harrying moving forces and preventing the enemy from receiving reinforcements, allowing a smoother and less costly victory for the other Legions. To their immense regret, however, the Wolves were never present in the major battles. 

As Old Earth united and The Steward looked to the stars, Russ was elevated to the exalted rank of Primarch.

To the disgust of Russ, so were Lion of House El'Jonson and Magnus the Red.

The Lion, as a knight of Franj and a member of House El'Jonson, was both an ancestral and recent enemy; Lion's brother Luther was responsible for the late king Thengir's maiming. Magnus the Red was a warp dabbling mutant who confessed to having consorted with daemons. Both had personalities that were utterly incompatible with Russ' own — and the feeling was mutual. It was rare that Legion elements under their jurisdictions would work together.

Russ was the first to recruit warriors from beyond Sol into his superhuman ranks. The people of Fenris were excellent recruitment stock — even if they were from a barbaric and primitive planet and needed extensive education to learn the discipline necessary for war. Russ himself was from a discontinued line of super soldiers; though possessing savage fighting temperaments and heightened senses, the modifications of the "Dog Soldiers" were dangerously unstable, and the Canis Helix Project proved to be too untenable even for the best minds in the Imperium. If news of the monsters born from the project had become common knowledge on Earth, the Warlord's support would have crumbled. But on a distant world as remote and seldom visited as Fenris, the project could not only be buried but begun anew at Russ' behest. After all, any monsters arising from the Project were the problem of a few distant primitives, certainly not the concern of the glorious Terra. For his part, the Emperor at first claimed no knowledge of the new Canis Helix soldiers, and even when he did learn of it he trusted Russ' claims of the failure rate as being "well within acceptable parameters", thus leaving Fenris and its canine guardians well alone. 

The Space Wolves, as the legion became known, quickly made up for their questionable origins by serving with great distinction during the Great Crusade, excelling at tracking a target and assassinating them — often in close-quarters combat. Regrettably, in the wretched days of the War of the Beast, a number of the wolves were tempted down the bath of bloodshed for bloodshed's sake, and forsook the Empty Throne of Terra for the one of brass and bone, where the Lord of Skulls held court instead. Of these oathbreakers, no name was cursed more by Russ than that of Skyrar of Caledonia — whom Russ once would have called brother.

Some measure of honour would be restored, however, to the ranks broken by turncoats and anointed in blood. Russ's Wolves made great speed back towards Terra, and seeing the home he had left a lifetime ago aflame in war broke the Great Wolf's heart. The wolves threw themselves into the inferno and fought like mad beasts, with neither thought of the past nor hope for the future; this was no thirst for vengeance but instead a plea for redemption. Russ himself was there at the Last Roll of Thunder when Arik Taranis, Bearer of Lightning, fell in battle in the great plaza before the Eternity Gate, and took up the tattered old Unification banner in his place.

When the last of the fires grew cold, none would ever again question the loyalty of the Space Wolves. For all that the shattered remnant of a legion was covered in blood and soot, each man felt truly clean.


The remains of the Space Wolves retreated to Fenris, licking their wounds, and quietly rebuilt their legion as the Imperium itself rebuilt. For no matter how enlightened or holy it may become, Russ knew that the Throne would always need its tame monsters. But the Great Wolf himself was not fated to fall in glorious battle, and certainly not to fall to the temptations of the Ruinous Powers. Instead, the legends say, some two centuries later Russ — now an old warrior and the King of his world — simply walked alone out into the snow. His brothers, friends, and servants all followed his tracks into the cold woods of the frozen north, but he was never seen again. Some say the Old King is resting, and will return to face the Old Night in the days when hope withers and the stars grow dim.

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