Sortiarius

Welcome to Sortiarius! Expect free mutations and warp fuckery with none of the safety precautions!

Sortiarius (roughly the Latin word for "Sorcerer", also called the Planet of the Sorcerers) is the Daemon World that serves as home and headquarters of the Thousand Sons Legion after the Burning of Prospero, after leaving their old home of Prospero was, evidenced by that battle's name, destroyed by the Space Wolves. Sortiarius was originally an unnamed and unpopulated Daemon World in the Eye of Terror, and Tzeentch had put the "Reserved" sign down on it when he first got his hands/feathers/tentacles on it.

History and Overview

Location of Prospero/Sortiarius.

The arrival of the Thousand Sons was more or less by accident (but not really), caused by being chased from their old home by Loyalist allies. Tragically, this was after the Thousand Sons only faithfully did their duty to the Emperor (but not really). At the end of the battle, Magnus ordered his surviving sons and what remaining humans they could take with them to go into the central pyramid, then he said the magic word, and the whole damn building and the surrounding districts were thrown through the Warp and ended up on a strange new world. Once they set foot on the planet, the Thousand Sons found that their powers had expanded, increasing their psychic potential and finding that they now had access to powers beyond the domain of their specialized cult. It also meant that mutation was a major problem - until Ahriman took charge of the situation, but that's another story.

Star chart of the Prospero System.

When the Thousand Sons arrived, Sortiarius was inhabited by wyrms which the legion slew when they first entered the planet's surface though if any of those wyrms still exist is unknown, it was undeveloped but they eventually built it up with materials and slaves taken in raids across realspace. Tizca, now more or less relocated, is now rebuilt into a twisted mockery of its old self. Every Thousand Son who could be bothered (i.e. only the Sorcerers) now has his own Wizard's Tower. The main population is comprised of humans, originally the descendants of the original Prosperine humans who still serve as the Sons' servants and occasionally in the Spire Guard auxiliaries, as well as the slaves that have been taken through raids into real space over the years. (Though calling any group but for the freshest of captives "human" is probably inaccurate.) Most of the humans that live on Sortiarius have mutated into Beastmen (IN SPACE), though for the most part they are a lot more civilized and smarter than the Beastmen of WFB. Many of the Tzaangors (beastmen of Tzeentch) are "wild", living and preying on the blasted planes of Sortiarius, but the Sons do occasionally recruit or enslave some to serve as enforcers and crew on their ships. Tzaangors are actually quite good at it by virtue of being much more intelligent and disciplined than most other beastmen, also notable for being very capable when it comes to formulating complex battle plans - Abaddon himself recognized Sortiarius Tzaangors as some of the best shipwrights of the Eye. Assuming their social structure is anything like Prospero's, life is probably better for the humans, mutants, and beastmen on Sortiarius than on many planets in the Imperium if they manage to stave off death or insanity from living in an actively hostile hellscape.

The world is ruled by Magnus, who has the biggest, blackest tower, and it has a giant eye hovering above it. We would wonder if the writers were even trying, but this was written before the LotR movies, leaving only the more credentialed neckbeards to wonder if the writers were even trying. Back on topic, Magnus is like most of the other traitor Primarchs, who are the daemonic equivalent of the guy who rarely ever gets off of his couch except for when he really needs to get shit done. He spends most of his time doing his part in the Great Game, leaving him to plan and scheme and occasionally yell orders to the Thousand Sons who've stayed on Sortiarius. While he rarely leaves Sortiarius, Magnus has occasionally lead his sons on incursions into realspace, particularly two notable invasions of Fenris. One of those lead to Sortiarius being brought into realspace, which was the opening event of the Great Game breaking out into realspace, a theme that's becoming more prominent with the Great Rift opening up. This has lead Magnus to becoming more proactive in the Long War, even if his focus is still more or less on securing dominance for Tzeentch.

Sortiarius also likely holds quite a few treasure troves of knowledge, arcane artefacts, strange valuables, and lots of otherwise weird shit. They also do low key recruiting there, training any young, prospective psykers and weeding out all but the most physically and mentally capable and elevating them into Sorcerers. It's also hypothesized that they resurrect fallen Rubric Marines, keeping their dead from resting and shackled to the will of their former brothers, but then there's always been as many Rubric Marines as needed by writers who had Thousand Sons Sorcerers who needed minions, so take that for what it's worth.

Not much is known about Sortiarius beyond that, but there are some known details. Want Wizard's Towers? They got those. Want mutants? They got those. Want a sky made of fire the colour of a kaleidoscope on crack? Want rains of blood so hard they'll take the paint off your ceramite? Want ambience made of the screams of the damned? No? They got that anyway. The planet even has a planetary ring, made of souls who died by deceit. Yeah. It's a pretty fucked up place. And there's plenty more weird shit to go around.

Most of this is mentioned in passing by figures like Iskandar Khayon and Ahzek Ahriman, or from a Thousand Sons short story: there have always been few references and only oblique descriptions of Sortiarius. Oh, and it was only called "The Planet of the Sorcerers" until Aaron gave it a proper name in 2014. Graham McNeil, however, doesn't use it, even stating that to the Thousand Sons no name for the world sticks for very long. Because Change, geddit?

We get a brief glimpse of Sortiarius in the Wrath of Magnus trailer with a full colouration being present in Gathering Storm III.

As of Wrath of Magnus, it is now in realspace around Prospero, bringing with it all the warp shit you'd imagine and making the galaxy flooded enough to keep certain Daemonic entities stable. This means that Sortiarius and the entire Prosperine system is basically now an independent mini-magocratic empire with its own sphere of influence called New Kingdom. Suffice to say, the Imperium is not too pleased with this.

Gallery

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  Sortiarius when it was still inside the Warp.

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  The Cityscape of Sortiarius.

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  Where Magnus & Company plan their schemes.