Thousand Sons

Thousand Sons
Battle Cry	"All is dust..."
Number	XV
Original Homeworld	Prospero
Current Homeworld	Sortiarius (latin for sorcerer), also known as the Planet of the Sorcerers
Primarch	Magnus the Red
Strength	Each one of the Nine Cult contains hundreds of Sorcerers leading thousands of Rubricae, giving somewhere under 10,000 Sons in total.
Specialty	Psykers, Chaos Sorcerers, Just as Planned, Taking key points with minimal casualties
Allegiance	Tzeentch,(And whoever is working for him at the time), whoever asks for their aid that is not a xeno
Colours	Dark teal and yellow with gold trim , post M.31 ,although some warbands may adopt alternate color schemes (Pre-Heresy: Red with Gold trim)

"The point was to learn what it was we feared more: being misunderstood or being betrayed."

– Adam Levin, The Instructions

"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance"

– Thousand Sons catchphrase/motto pre-heresy

"Everything is dust in the wind."

– Kansas, Dust in the Wind

"I'm cold and there are wolves after me."

– Abe Simpson, The Simpsons

The Thousand Sons are a Chaos Space Marine legion that fully devote themselves to Tzeentch...which may not make them chaos marines at all given the mollusk's tendencies. Their Primarch is Magnus the Red, an extremely psychically powerful Daemon Primarch with one eye and a magnificent red mane. The legion, when founded, had a mutation in the gene-seed that caused uncontrollable mutation that led to quick death (presumably because it was corrupted by the warp). Magnus became desperate in saving his legion, so he made a pact with Tzeentch and sacrificed one of his eyes to seal the deal. By that time only about 1000 marines remained alive. Turns out this sacrifice was in vain because Tzeentch tricked Magnus into believing that the deed was done, when in fact the sacrifice was only done to post-pone the mutation in the gene-seed. During the siege of their home planet Prospero by those damned furries, the Thousand Sons started to succumb to random mutation and turn into something that must not be named before dying violent deaths. Later, on the Planet of the Sorcerers, Ahzek Ahriman of the Thousand Sons cast the Rubric of Ahriman to save the legion again, but failed, as their mortal bodies were turned into dust and their souls bound to their power armor forever.

No, seriously. Incredibly pissed-off dust. Due to this, they have the single coolest battle cry ever. A far reaching, otherworldly whisper into the soul, "All is dust", which makes it all the more terrifying and awesome. Unfortunately, being literal dust means that their one true weakness is the almighty vacuum cleaner. Luckily, the Imperium has still not caught on to this, so for now... ALL IS STILL DUST HA HA HA! Though it is entirely possible that the STC necessary to create vacuum cleaners remains lost.

They are also the only known Traitor Legion to still have their own PDF equivalent called the Spireguard which used to defend Prospero back in the Great Crusade and is now defending Sortiarius. Spireguards unlike the raging retards of other Chaos Cultists are well disciplined and thought well of by the Thousand Sons, acting more like an armed and trained militia rather then a rag-tag team of drug addicts and serial killers. This is to not only pay sentimental homage to their original home but it also allows allied support for the Thousand Sons during a campaign to kick the furries in their hairy ass nuts. Therefore making the Thousand Sons one of the few reasonable traitor legions that is not Alpha Legion or Blood Gorgons.

History

Pre-Magnus Thousand Sons looking pretty schwing!

Pre-heresy

The Thousand Sons were one of the late developed legions, being used primarily by the Big E to wipe the floor with whatever remaining resistance there was on Terra during the aftermath of the Unification Wars. Their creation began during a particularly violent Warp storm which cut Terra off from the rest of the galaxy for a short time. The Crusade ground to a halt for this time period, but the Emperor just shrugged His shoulders and got to work on other matters. Personally choosing the most genetically stable candidates He could find, the Emperor gathered up as many as met His criteria and implanted them with Magnus's Geneseed. The Legion's creation was extremely slow due to these restrictive criteria, but nobody besides the Emperor knew, aside from genetic stability, what these criteria actually were. After He had successfully implanted 1000 of these individuals, enough to meet the alpha stage of Legion building, He christened them the Thousand Sons. Initially, the Thousand Sons seemed not to be particularly noteworthy in any way; in fact their late creation saw them miss out on the Solar Reclamation completely. They were competent to be sure, but so were all the other Legions, most of whom had developed some particularly outstanding characteristic or other. Additionally, most had by this time a number of nigh-on impossible campaigns to their name, like the IX and XVI Legions, or spectacular exploits of valor and skill at arms, like the XVIII Legion. Yet despite being so apparently mundane, the Thousand Sons were noted to carry, almost to a man, an attitude of smug superiority. They, at least, clearly thought that they were worthy of their auspicious beginnings and special attention from the Emperor. This attitude, combined with them having done nothing to earn it in the eyes of the other Legions, set the stage for the Thousand Sons being rather isolated.

Then, about 20 years into the Crusade, the Thousand Sons began all at once to exhibit psychic powers, finally explaining why the Emperor had spent so much time and effort on them. With these new powers, they became one of the killiest of all the legions, with their powers offsetting their small numbers. It was now apparent why the Legion had received so much personal attention from the Emperor in its creation, and reactions to the revelation that they were all psykers was... mixed. Some thought that making psychic Astartes was a fantastic idea; it just made the killiest weapon in the Imperial arsenal all the more deadly. Most however, did not take this viewpoint. With the Age of Strife having ended within living memory, practically nobody in the Imperium had a particularly tolerant view of psykers. The horrific abominations wrought by mad sorcerers and Warp priests upon Terra and beyond, not to mention all the psychic xenos flitting about, had caused the vast majority of humans to look upon psykers with fear at best, and murderous hysteria at worst. As such, where the Thousand Sons had been regarded with annoyance by other Legions, now they were looked upon with genuine loathing by many of them. The Death Guard and Emperor's Children point blank refused to work with them, and their list of detractors would only grow larger over time. Nevertheless, they were tolerated because they were totally awesome, used their abilities to wondrous effect in service of the Imperium, and in general were exceptionally badass (Superhuman warrior-monk magicians for the win!!). Additionally, despite most in the Imperial Armed Forces hating them due to being psykers, the Emperor never issued any sort of censure of the Thousand Sons. As such, everyone essentially just had to let them be. Their honor roll started to balloon in size and quality, and for a time, they filled a niche of being the guys to call when a psychic enemy needed killing. Even the Emperor Himself utilized them on a number of occasions to combat the horrific psychic xenos known as the Khrave.

Leave it to the nerdiest of the Primarchs to just self-insert for his legion's colors.

As time passed, the Thousand Sons became more and more skilled and powerful with their psychic abilities, but it came with a significant price. They began, in ever increasing numbers, to suffer from an utterly horrific condition known as the Flesh Change. At its most basic, it was an instantaneous mutation into a That-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named that seemed to have exceedingly limited predictability in both onset and predisposition. From the very first case onward, even the TSons could see that their use of Warp sorcery was clearly one of the factors that was either causing or exacerbating this problem. However, the TSons arrogantly saw their powers as their indisputable right to wield, and doubled and tripled down on their usage. Needless to say, this put them in a very precarious position. They had initially alienated most of the other Legions by being asshats, and then the realization that they were all psykers had turned that dislike to hatred for many. Now, they were literally turning into half-transformed The Thing entities at random. If anyone found out about their degeneration, half the Imperium would be calling for their outright extermination, while the other half would look on with tepid support for these calls. As such, they did everything they could to hide the Flesh Change. But the problem would only grow worse over time due both to the Thousand Sons using ever increasing amounts of Warp sorcery, and the near completely random nature of the mutations' onset. So the only way to keep their secret was to just stay away from literally anyone who might report them. Part of this meant that TSons in active war zones would oftentimes just up and leave without explanation (the actual reason being they suspected the Flesh Change coming on but were obviously not going to tell anyone). This just made everyone dislike them even more due to how unreliable they started becoming for no apparent reason.

It was all for naught however, as Malcador's agents, along with the Divisios Telepathica and Biologis, eventually all found out anyway. They all concluded the fairly obvious; the Flesh Change was a series of mutations brought on by a combination of some genetic flaw in the Legion's geneseed combined with their use of Warp sorcery. The bulk of the transformations had occurred while Legionaries had been using their powers, and the usage of Warp energies in general was well known to cause horrific mutations. But rather bizarrely for the most arguably nerdy of all the Legions, no matter how obvious it became that their sorcery was either the root of, or horribly exacerbating, the Flesh Change, the TSons pridefully continued to use their powers. It got so bad that when their Primarch Magnus was found upon Prospero, there were only (ironically) about a thousand of them left. One important thing to note however was that none of the other Astartes Legions seemingly discovered the existence of the Flesh Change, or if they perhaps did, they kept it to themselves. So all things considered, the TSons actually did a remarkably good job of hiding their tendency to turn into literal NOPE at the tip of a hat. The Emperor, who would obviously have known about the Flesh Change since Malcador knew, also never decided to have them destroyed, or even told them to tone down the Warp phuckery just a bit. One would think He might have, given the time and effort it took to make them. But the Emperor was, despite all His genius, bizarrely detached from certain, seemingly important aspects of His Imperium.

Eventually, the Crusade progressed far enough to make planetfall upon Prospero, whereupon Magnus was introduced to his Legion. He was obviously delighted to finally meet his sons but that meeting was sorely tainted by the fact that they basically all had incurable space cancer. Magnus's first priority was obviously to find a way to cure his Legion; if he couldn't he wouldn't have a Legion much longer. He searched desperately for a way to alleviate the Thousand Sons' problem. He looked through every dataslate the Mechanicum Biologis possessed on psykers, every scroll in Tizca, every xenos tristies on the Warp that he could get his hands on, every scrap of information the Divisio Telepathica could offer. He even pried the brains of Malcador and the Emperor, and still he found no solutions; only infuriating dead ends and paths to nowhere. Of course, just as with the rest of his Legion, it seemingly never occurred to Magnus that maybe constantly channeling the most intensely mutagenic thing in existence through one's body might have had something to do with the problem...

With his Legion quickly running out of time, and no solutions forthcoming, Magnus began to grow truly desperate. Then one day, deep in psychic meditation, he happened upon the The Cuttlefish of Cthulhu giggling away in the depths of the Warp. As previously mentioned, Magnus apparently made some sort of pact with Tzeentch without truly understanding what Tzeentch was, and certainly not that he had been responsible for the Flesh Change in the first place. It is also not known for sure how or why Magnus thought that dealing with Tzeentch would fix anything, though his reasoning may have been slightly sinister. Or just unfathomably stupid, and get used to that bit of irony when it comes to Magnus and his boys. It is speculated by some that Magnus did in fact have some small idea of what Tzeentch was when he dealt with him. Not that he was the practically omnipotent, omniscient god of aetheric dickery, but that he was a phenomenally powerful, exceedingly dangerous, denizen of the Immaterium. One that, incidentally, Magnus probably knew full well not to screw with. But desperate, out of options, and arrogant as ever, he struck his bargain, and the rest is history. Tzeentch seemingly agreed to whatever pact Magnus had presented or pretended to lose whatever wager he had proposed, and so the Flesh Change would quiet down for a while. Magnus wasted no time thereafter in reorganizing his Legion to his exacting specifications, forming an extremely esoteric system of ranks and divisions of expertise that rivaled even the Dark Angels for sheer inscrutability (though honestly neither system was that complicated, even if Magnus and the Lion liked to think otherwise). With their Primarch's genetic material having stabilized their geneseed, the Tzeentchian pact having stopped the Flesh Change, and the ease with which the populace of Prospero could be implanted with the TSons geneseed, things started genuinely looking up for the Nerdstartes.

During the next bit of the Crusade, the TSons, now rid of their Warp pimples, started to show their faces in public again. They struck up a friendship with the White Scars Legion and their Primarch Jaghatai Khan. Both Legions respected scholarship, and both had a significant number of trained psykers in their Legions who were present even before the Librarius initiative. The primary difference between the two was that the Khan and his sons possessed common sense and restraint, while Magnus and his possessed neither. Despite this difference in how they approached the Warp, their Legions got on swimmingly, and together they would become the backbone of the Librarius project. This project's idea was that, as all the Legions had psychically sensitive Astartes, it made sense to formalize some system of training for them so that they didn't spontaneously explode amongst their battle-brothers. So the Khan, Sanguinius, and particularly Magnus, began exporting some of the training regiments that the psykers of their own Legions used to their brothers. The idea quickly caught on with many of the other Primarchs, though they ran the gambit between loving the idea and thinking it was outright abominable. Some, like Guilliman, thought it was a splendid idea to not only introduce some order to a pretty random element of the Legions (Guilliman loves his order after all), but to render unto the Legions yet another exceedingly useful tool. Others, like Konrad Curze, greeted the idea with total indifference. Still others, chief amongst them Mortarion, hated the idea so much that they refused to allow any Astartes in their Legion to practice Warpcraft. As such, no consensus was ever reached amongst the Primarchs as to whether the Librarius should be adopted wholescale, and so each Legion just did its own thing as per usual. Most did adopt the Librarius structure however.

Though Sanguinius was involved in the initiative's inception, he seemingly had no particularly close relationship with either Magnus or the Khan (though to be fair, a mere acquaintance with Sanguinius had the same level of comradery as close friendship with most other Primarchs). Similarly, the Blood Angels seemed not to have had a close relationship with the TSons, though the two Legions were perfectly cordial towards one another. The Scars would later go on to become the only known Sworn Brothers of the Thousand Sons, and this close bond lasted until the Burning of Prospero. For some completely unknown reason, the TSons and Alpha Legion apparently absolutely hated each other. As in even the Space Wolves were willing to at least work with the TSons, but the Alpha Legion hated the TSons as much as the Death Guard did, and nobody is quite sure why. Additionally, that animosity was reciprocated just as strongly, again without any public facing reason. One of the theories about this (though unconfirmed) is that the Alpha Legion may have discovered the existence of the Flesh Change, as poking their noses into other people's secrets was their bread and butter. It would make sense as to why the Thousand Sons hated them so much; if word ever got out about that, even the Emperor Himself would have had a hard time keeping the TSons from being straight up annihilated by the other Legions. It would also make sense as to why the Alpha Legion shared the TSons' hatred. Knowing that the TSon next to you might just turn into the most horrifying collection of asymmetries known to man at random would probably have put even the Night Lords off of working with them. Other than that, the Death Guard as previously noted still hated the TSons, the Emperor's Children still hated them, the Space Wolves would grow to hate them, and everyone else, in the short term at least, seemingly kept their low-level annoyance with them. Magnus was personally known to have been at least somewhat close to Perturabo as well (relatively speaking of course), but no mention is made of their Legions having interacted much.

However, the Thousands Sons' luck ran out eventually. After some decades of Crusading, Magnus and his Legion were called to the Council of Nikaea: a grand gathering of the Emperor and most of His sons to decide if the Astartes should be allowed to use warp based abilities unsupervised. Magnus attended Council in high spirits, thinking that it was going to be an neutral, scholastic conclave where he would be allowed to extol the virtues of unrestricted psykers. What he didn't count on was that the Thousand Sons, and Magnus in particular, had managed to piss off a lot of the other Astartes Legions and their Primarchs. Even those Primarchs who supported the Librarius initiative couldn't really defend the Thousand Sons rampant use of Warp powers or Magnus's general attitude. A few of them even sent representatives who were told to support the continuation of the Librarius, but condemn Magnus in particular. Dorn and the Lion were foremost amongst them, though they gave no particular reason as to why. Rather than being an open forum, the whole thing essentially turned into a trial of Magnus and the TSons. One in which they had few friends, but seemingly more than their fair share of enemies.

While Magnus's discovery had been a godsend for the Thousand Sons in most ways, he caused them to develop a number of additional quirks that got under nearly everyone's skin. On top of the Thousand Sons' attitude problems, insular nature and the general loathing of psykers in the Imperium, they had developed an obnoxious habit of completely disregarding the Crusade's military needs if some bit of obscure "lore" caught their attention. Whether it be human, xenos, or otherwise, if the TSons caught so much as a whiff of anything related to the Warp, they would be off to study and collect it. This tendency was entirely down to Magnus himself, as his insatiable curiosity had quickly rubbed off on all the mini-Magnuses that comprised his Legion. It had become such a problem that the Thousand Sons were known to just up and leave active warzones without telling anyone if they found something more interesting to occupy them. Unlike during the days of the Flesh Change, it was not just individual TSons leaving, or small groups. Now entire Thousand Sons Expeditionary forces would simply vanish without a word if they thought something more worthy of their attention was over the horizon. While this was not recorded to have had any disastrous consequences for the forces involved, one must imagine that anybody who was left holding the proverbial bag would have been royally pissed. They would also completely ignore pleas for aid from other Legions, sometimes for literal years, while they tinkered with whatever shiny Warp bauble they had most recently happened upon. This happened to Leman Russ on at least one occasion, and was known to have been one of the factors as to why the TSons pissed him off so much.

On top of all that, the TSons had also gotten into at least two serious conflicts with other Legions when they tried to preserve some bit of heretical lore in defiance of Imperial law. An incident upon Ark Reach Secundus saw Magnus and Russ nearly come to blows over a historical repository upon that Magnus wanted to preserve and Russ wanted to destroy. The Space Wolves and Thousand Sons engaged in a small scale skirmish, but the Thousand Sons used non-lethal Warp abilities to disable the small number of Space Wolves who charged them. Sadly however, the Flesh Change decided to pop back up at exactly that time, and one of the TSons turned into an aborted Shoggoth right in front of Leman Russ. Disgusted and horrified, Russ wasted no time in dispatching the former legionnaire. This for some reason pissed off Magnus and the surrounding TSons (which is a little silly as they of all people knew that their former brother was best put out of his misery) and the two Primarchs nearly began brawling. However, Lorgar stepped between them. Lorgar's silver tongue combined with the fact that both Russ and Magnus quite liked him saw the latter two Primarchs stand down. Another such incident involved the Night Lords. Another heretical library had been found by a joint Night Lords/Thousand Sons Crusade force, and the Thousand Sons had so wanted it preserved that they had occupied the building and put up a psychic shield around it. The Night Lords however were under orders to destroy it, as per standard Imperial military policy regarding heretical information. Curze was in overall command of the campaign, and so brought up a massive amount of field artillery to pulverize the structure. The Thousand Sons would not budge however, and began a game of chicken with the Night Lords. The Thousand Sons for whatever reason bet that a group of psychotic mass murdering torturers, decked in skulls and flayed skin, wouldn't blow up a building with TSons still inside. Remember what was previously said about unfathomable stupidity being a pattern?

At any rate, the two Primarchs had met in person aboard the Gloriana-class Nightfall to discuss the fate of the library. Magnus plead his case to Curze that the knowledge in the library was not heretical by nature, and that he and the TSons could put it to use for the betterment of humanity. Curze, as one might expect, was completely unsympathetic. After letting Magnus talk for a bit, Curze simply pointed out that he was technically 100% right in his decision to the destroy the library, and that being technically right is the only kind of right that matters when it comes to the law. Magnus tried for a bit of brotherly favor or fraternity, but as one might again expect, Curze wasn't having any of that either. He also tried to argue that, as the self-proclaimed expert on the Warp, he was the one best suited to judge whether or not the library should stand or fall. Curze basically just rolled his eyes, and then ordered the planned artillery strike on the library with the Thousand Sons still inside. The psychic shield held through the first bombardment, but Curze made it absolutely clear that he was more than willing to have the Nightfall completely glass the place if that's what it took. Since he technically didn't have a leg to stand on (he was trying to save an obviously heretical library after all), Magnus very saltily pulled his forces back and Curze leveled the building.

Needless to say, the Thousand Sons had made a lot of unnecessary enemies with their solipsistic douchbaggery, and Magnus ended up having to try to defend all these actions without much in the way of backup at the Council. Sadly for the Thousand Sons, Magnus ended up making a pretty significant ass of himself in front of the Emperor (which is something considering that his primary detractor was Mortarion of all people). To be fair to the sapient stinkcloud however, Mortarion made a number of quite salient points against the dangers of psychic powers, and Magnus failed in his rebuttal to actually address any of them. The Emperor thus decided that He'd given the Thousand Sons and Magnus far too much leeway in their pursuit of power and knowledge. To keep other Legions from further experimentation, He put the kibosh on the Librarius initiative as a whole, and forbade the use of psychic powers in Astartes combat. However, He did not issue any formal sanctions against anyone at the Council, as He essentially admitted that His directives had been implicit. He'd been relying on the individual Astartes Legions to act with an abundance of caution that the Thousand Sons and Magnus simply did not have. Had Jaghatai Khan, with his common sense and mustache, represented the psyker cause at the Council, there's a good chance things would have been different. Alas, he was so far afield that by the time word of the Council's decision on the Librarius even reached him, the Heresy had already started.

The Thousand Sons were forced to dissolve their Librarius along with everyone else, except for the White Scars, who ignored it, the World Eaters, whose Librarium was so small they didn't even bother disbanding it, the Space Wolves who believed that their librarians somehow weren't working with the warp (and who the Emperor made an exception for), and the Word Bearers, who were already quietly sacrificing people to chaos. Obviously, this had a far larger impact on the Thousand Sons than on any other Legion. Psychic powers had essentially formed the core of the Legion's combat doctrine and character, and they were sorely missed in the next few of their campaigns. Predictably however, Magnus didn't give a shit either and headed home to Prospero to continue being a sorcerer in secret. The Thousand Sons in general actually did go along with the ban for a short time, but quickly realized that, as long as they stopped being so flashy with their powers, there wasn't really anyone around to tattle on them. As such, they quickly started back up again, and simply avoided using their powers around anyone who might tell the Emperor. There would be rumors sure, but the Thousand Sons figured that there would be rumors even if they actually did hold to the ban.

Heresy

Welcome to Prospero Bitch!

Before the actual start of the Horus Heresy, Magnus learned of Horus' corruption and used his powers of sorcery to warn the Empra about his oh-most-favored son's impending treachery, and that his favored son, if not stopped, was about to fuck everything up and destroy everything the Emperor had sought to build. Unfortunately Magnus' contacting the Emperor in this fashion could not have occurred at a worse time: it caused the Webway portal and the Golden Throne which the Emperor was building to suffer a Blue Screen of Death (Windows has stopped responding. In the grim darkness of the far future there is only Windows Vista) and become damaged beyond repair, and in addition caused a massive psychic blowout across all of Terra, crippling Astropath communication and inducing psychosis-related rebellions and suicides world-wide (see Outcast Dead novel).

Only slightly Way too bummed that he had screwed-up the Emperor's master-plan, Magnus headed back to Prospero in order to prepare to receive the Empra's mercy (read: to be killed in a very cruel way) and sent the Sons' fleet to buy some drinks. Meanwhile, the Emperor, royally pissed at Magnus for damaging the Throne and unwilling to believe his most favored son could betray him, sent the Space Wolves to arrest him. Horus, who was digging Chaos already, pulled a move worthy of Eldrad Ulthran in terms of dickery, and sent a fake message to Leman Russ - with orders to destroy the Thousand Sons instead. Russ had, even before receiving these orders, seemingly been preparing for a worst-case scenario with Magnus (if one takes a charitable viewpoint). When Constantin Valdor arrived at Beta-Garmon from Terra, he found that Russ had been busy arming his Legion to the absolute teeth with proscribed Dark Age tech, Phosphex and other Destroyer-grade weaponry, and Exterminatus level devices beyond that. Valdor was somewhat surprised by this, but it is inconceivable that Russ wouldn't have told him about Horus's change of orders, and so the whole thing appeared to have been on the up-and-up.

However, Leman was to have something of a bro moment despite Magnus being perhaps his least favorite sibling. Though seemingly being 100% on-board with completely wiping out the Thousand Sons and killing Magnus, he apparently either had some hidden doubts as to Horus's orders, or a last minute change of heart. So when he got into Prospero's orbit, he tried to contact Magnus via both vox channels and a Thousand Sons plant within his Legion that he had become aware of (as in a spy, not a psychic vegetable). However Magnus had put up what amounted to a physic bubble preventing outside communications via any aetheric means, and nobody was picking up the vox. After about an hour's worth of agitated pacing on Leman's part and stoic waiting on Constantin Valdor's part, the two decided that they'd been more than chivalrous enough, and the Loyalist fleet opened fire on Prospero. Fortunately, there was basically only one city on Prospero; Tizca, and that was so well shielded that despite an Exterminatus level bombardment, the city was unscathed. The Thousand Sons of course had absolutely no idea what the fuck had just happened, and because Magnus had told them to sit tight when asked, they did so even when the initial Loyalist ground assault began. The city's human auxillia however, were not given any such instructions. As far as they could tell, their world had just been subjected to the single worst military disaster in its history, and their Astartes custodians didn't seem to care. They therefore hurried to both engage whoever was attacking them and evacuate the civilians in Tizca's outer sections. There, the confused human soldiers encountered the vanguard of the Wolves, aaannd... well, they met the fate of all mortals who tangle with Astartes. Worse in fact, as few Legions were quite so butcherous as the Space Wolves. They put up a heroic and highly effective fight, inasmuch as baseline humans could against Astartes, but they died to a man in mere minutes.

After some time getting report after report that the human auxillia and civilians were being slaughtered in droves by the Wolves, Chief Librarian Ahzek Ahriman decided to ignore his Primarch's orders and, in a show of true manliness, led the Thousand Sons and the Spireguard in a defence of the capital. Outnumbered something like five to one against not only the Wolves but the Adeptus Custodes and the Sisters of Silence, the TSons managed to inflict heavy casualties to the Wolves thanks to both their innate powers and a psychic teleportation network built into Tizca. They were able to use it to precision hit-and-run ambushes upon the Wolves, and then teleport away in the resulting confusion to go do it somewhere else. This not only had the result of allowing the TSons to completely outmaneuver the Wolves, but caused the Wolves to think that there were far more enemies in far more locations than there actually were. This, combined with telepathic assaults on the Wolves' perceptions, slowed their pace considerably, and inflicted far more casualties on the VI Legion than would have otherwise been possible. After a short time wreaking merry havoc amongst the Wolves, Valdor, his Custodes, and the Sisters of Silence joined the fray. They were countered by the Sekhmet Terminators or the TSons 1st Company, and the the elite duelists of the Khenetai. They died to a man, but managed to wound Valdor slightly and kill about 500 of the Sisters. Meanwhile, the TSons also launched a desperate attack on Russ and his Varagyr Terminators. Led by Auramagma, Captain of the 8th Fellowship, the attack failed after Auramagma himself had a massive psychic fireblast reflected back at him by some innate ability of Russ. Despite these setbacks, the TSons continued to make an exceptional showing of themselves... right up until the Flesh Change once again reared its ugly head. Quite literally. With their home and people under threat of complete destruction, the TSons had been using every psychic trick in the book to gain the upper hand, and this unprecedented use of psychic energy had caused a huge Warp storm to form over Tizca. The more Warp energy the TSons used, the more powerful the storm became, which fed their power in turn. This process started a massive feedback loop which caused psychic energy to build up in Tizca like a static charge, and it eventually exploded in the Thousand Sons collective faces. Once the right amount of energy had collected, the Thousand Sons suddenly started mutating into horrific Warp gribblies en masse without any warning. The TSons immediately realized that the Flesh Change was back with a vengeance, and this had a horrific effect not just on the TSons' numbers (and bodies), but on morale. Not only that, but even the most die-hard Warp enthusiast amongst the TSons could no longer pretend as though the Warp was not responsible for the Flesh Change. As such, many of them toned down or completely stopped using their powers in the battle. Needless to say, in a battle where their psychic powers were essentially the only thing keeping them from being overrun, losing them was an absolute catastrophe.

The defensive line was pushed back to the Pyramid of Photep, Magnus' HQ and last shelter for the civilians. Magnus finally joined the battle, unable to watch his Sons get massacred any more, and decided to challenge Leman Russ in single combat. While he put up a good fight, even breaking Russ's breastplate and piercing one of his hearts, Russ eventually beat Magnus down. Just before being hacked to pieces by the angry brother and as the Wolves started to close in on the remnant of his Legion, Magnus gave himself over to Tzeentch. He and the rest of the Thousand Sons reappeared on the Planet of the Sorcerers. Magnus swore vengeance against Russ and the other Marines who had stupidly ignored his warnings, and started plotting against the Wolves and the rest of the Imperium that betrayed him. Which is of course quite idiotic as Magnus at no point until AFTER Russ had crippled him even attempted to talk to his brother.

Inferno puts a different set of events to describe the end of the Battle of Prospero. In-universe, an examination by the Adeptus Astra Telepathica reveals that only a being such as Tzeentch could have teleported anyone across the galaxy, and as always, power demands sacrifice. The writer goes on to mention that some insane scholars theorized that rather than transporting the remaining survivors of the Thousand Sons, Tzeentch only teleported Ahriman to the Planet of the Sorcerers, consuming his remaining brother Legionaries as a sacrifice to fuel the act. Every other Thousand Son after that point was a duplicate created by Tzeentch to have Ahriman cast the Rubric. However, this theory falls a bit flat when one realizes that, if there had been no actual Thousand Sons, there would not have been any point in casting the Rubric. Unless the entire thing was actually just done for the lulz, which would be indescribably retarded but also very Tzeentchean.

After these events Tzeentch walked up and sat on his throne in the Hidden Library, at which point he conjured a martini glass full of salty tears and sipped from it. He then set it down on the arm rest, held his hands together, chuckled and muttered "Just As Planned".

Rubric Marines

The Thousand Sons' custom/basic infantry unit:The Rubric Marine.

"Just as planned!"

– Ahzek Ahriman, who'd never been so wrong in his life before (or after) that

(Aka The Day Management changed all the employment terms and conditions and forgot to inform the workforce, not even a memo. The Unions were pissed.)

As mentioned previously, the Thousand Sons' army was at one point 66% dust. This was primarily because of Ahzek Ahriman's FML spell: The Rubric of Ahriman.

They didn't take the news well...

This rite damned everyone without psychic powers to be turned into ash and their soul to be sealed for all eternity into their permanently sealed armor unless the armor itself is broken; until Games Workshop gets its head out of its ass (which will probably never happen), it also damned those WITH psychic powers, as Gee Dubs is now claiming most of the Scarab Occult Terminators were psykers who got Rubricked, which also means that only the most powerful psykers lived through the spell.

Originally this was supposed to stop the mutations they were experiencing, as the Burning of Prospero had seen the Flesh Change return worse than ever before. Figuring out his own method from Magnus' spellbooks, Ahriman crafted a ritual that caused any Marines with mutations to either survive with their mutations cured and psychic powers augmented - or turned to dust if they weren't strong enough to resist the change. It's worth noting that Ahriman's plan was actually to cure the whole Legion of mutations, but the Warp being the Warp, things got out of hand. Suffice to say Magnus was fucking pissed and sought to kill Ahriman, but Tzeentch applauded Ahriman and saved his ass. The spirit-armor Marines became known as Rubric Marines. Of course, in an ironically Tzeentchean sort of way, the spell did indeed cure the Flesh Change. No flesh, no Flesh Change after all. So it worked exactly as intended. Just... well, not as planned

Rubric Marines are automatons - without a strong guiding presence, they lapse into a passive state - they are immortal beyond even a Space Marine's immortality and thus make the perfect guardians for the libraries and bases of the Thousand Sons. When guided by a Sorcerer or placed in the front lines against a foe, their old battle-hunger returns and they move with more of a sense of purpose. They obey orders without hesitation, and know no fear. Or much else for that matter. Making them far more fearsome, their Sorcerers equip them with modified bolter rounds that are enchanted to explode into bursts of white-hot warp-fire on impact, burning through armor with incredible speed. Additionally, since they're functionally animated suits of armor, they possess phenomenally strong supernatural protection due to their construction and are a bitch to kill as a result. They are, however, incredibly slow.

Whilst the current generation of Rubric Marines date back to the Thousand Sons' expulsion of Ahriman, it's believed they have the ability to make more by using altered and notably scaled-down versions of the rite that resulted in the Rubric. Even with this, however, the creation of them is lengthy and time-consuming, ergo guaranteeing that their enemies will slowly whittle down their numbers by drowning them in corpses, which is pretty much the tactic used by the Imperials against chaos marines constantly. Though, like all major Chaos Marine forces, the Thousand Sons have their own armies of lesser men: Surprisingly non-traitor Chaos Guard called Spireguard, which is used to drown their enemies in corpses or to tie up Imperial meatshields whilst Rubric Marines and Sorcerers do the jobs that matter. In editions past it was mentioned, that Thousand Sons Sorcerers can reanimate killed (broken?) Rubric Marines with a simple yet time-consuming ritual and Magnus himself can somehow bring back fallen Sorcerers in his super-awesome Black Tower on the Sorcerers Planet. All of this was possible due to how the Rubric made the souls of both Golems and Sorcerers all but immune to the powers of Warp so they cannot be nommed by daemons - although, as Erebus showed in "Betrayer", it is quite possible (though not easy) to resurrect even one whose soul "was torn apart and eaten by daemons". It was never retconned, so we can assume that this fluff is still valid, and no matter how many Thousand Sons you've killed, they'll always come back from the dead. At least they wouldn't do it right the next second, just after you've killed them.

Tabletop-wise Rubric marines are of debatable use. Yes they're fearless, are fairly good at being shooty, especially if their bolters are enchanted, has a +4 invul save, so basically, they rape any kind of infantry that doesn't have the toughness of a Terminator. But on the downside, they're slow like termies and aren't necessarily as tough as them, they're nearly useless if the sorcerer leading them dies, they don't wow anyone in CQC, and overall they're hard to use for beginners. Overall, sort of a bridge between the shootiness of Slaanesh Noise Marines, toughness of Nurgle Plague Marines, and the fearlessness of Khornate Berzerkers. Throw them in a Rhino and let the games begin. You really have to know what you're doing with these guys. They CAN do quite awesome, but you need to use them right. And having Tzeentch smile upon you (in a way) never hurts.

The Thousand Sons have a distinctive battle cry "All is Dust." Only the relatively rare standard Marines they have however, scream it - instead, the sorcerers typically emit it as a sonorous chant, accompanied by flickers of warp-light as the squad emerges from seemingly nowhere.

Ahzek Ahriman, aka The One Who Psy-Bolts your Ass to Death.

Post-Rubric

Like most other Chaos legions, the Thousand Sons broke their coherence after the Heresy and split into small warbands, or in their case "warcovens" (because space witches). Those warcovens are usually not just small, but tiny, with few of them having more than four or five sorcerers and a few dozen golems. As the Thousand Sons fleet survived the burning of Prospero and the Rubric pretty much unscratched, every single one of these covens usually has at least one cruiser-class ship and probably a few escort wings, and it's not uncommon for them to fill these ships with some nasty shit like Dark Mechanicum robots, daemon engines, summoned daemons, or animated constructs to make sure they're safe from boarding parties despite their numerical disadvantage when it comes to clashes with other CSM warbands. They usually hire themselves as mercenaries for bigger warbands, Dark Mechanicum forges, or the Black Legion, in exchange for resources, knowledge, and magical trinkets, which they then move to their base of operations on the Soritarius, the Sorcerers' planet; there, they can study them and nerd out in their libraries, while plotting to outshine each other in "the nerdiest sorcerer of the Galaxy" contest. While many of them no longer hold much love for their daemonic Primarch (no surprises here as his good and noble aspect was consumed in the creation of Ianus / Janus, the first supposed Grand Master of the Grey Knights), their loyalty to him stems from the simple fact that he's capable of bringing dead sorcerers back to life without even need for their corpses, with a nice bonus of having the access to the Soritarius' resources and research facilities. Still, some warcovens (like Ahriman's Prodigal Sons) went rogue and cut their ties with their new homeworld, and some decided to wear black and join the Despoiler in his Long War - in fact pretty much all of the Black Legion's top-ranked sorcerers and diviners are ex-Thousand Sons, and they are amongst the most valued members of the legion, some even part of Abaddon's inner circle.

With the redo of the Thousand Sons line, the above has been quite heavily retconned. While some did break from the Legion, many remained within its ranks; splitting into Thrallbands (Small Companies) and Sects (Small Chapters). While they are members of the Legion none are exactly loyal (although there are some standout cases of those who are). Each individual brother serves his own purposes and sees his group as a way of personal advancement. In the same way, the leaders of groups serve Magnus only because of the resources and connections that come with being in the Legion. Even the Rehati and their Cult Command (Magnus’ Inner Circle, kinda) are implied to all be scheming against each other, and even him to an extent. This is not that dissimilar to the old lore, as each group is essentially its own warband, generally doing what it wants. While using the resources of Sortarious in exchange for occasionally helping out in the Cults aims, in fact, some groups (mostly from the Cult of Duplicity) have been exiled for disobedience/team killing yet still remain in the cult because they are useful. So basically nothing changed much apart from we now have a legion of autistic space wizards fumbling about as they fail to purge the space furries because Bob's too busy dicking Dave over.

Wrath of Magnus

"ENOUGH! You are all my sons, born of my blood. Some loyal and faithful through the ages; some wayward and treacherous, walking their own paths. But the crimes of the past mean nothing. All paths have led back here. The Blade of Fate hangs above Fenris; together, we shall drive it deep into the icy earth of that worthless world."

– Magnus the Red

As of recently, Magnus has gotten off his ass and returned some semblance of unity and order to his legion (which had been falling apart for ten thousand years) in a colossal scheme of Just as Planned to royally fuck up the Space Yiffs, involving Daemons, Wulfen, and Bringing the Planet of the sorcerers into the material realm. Doing this, they used the fact that the Wulfen only appeared when Daemons appeared to trick the Grey Knights and Dark Angels into thinking that the Wolves had fallen to chaos. This ended with a dead Wolf Lord, the majority of the Fenrisian population being either killed or Sterilised by the Grey Knights, the chapter crippled very badly, and currently bitching and crying their way to Cadia to recover.

Seeing the way Morty launched the invasion of the Scourge Stars, the Sons realized that they needed a place too. So, they took several planets from the Imperium, including the homeworld of the Mordian Guardsmen but ultimately they were repelled by the combined forces of Ulthwe and the Imperium.

Hope for redemption?

Out of all the Chaos Legions, the Thousand Sons are the most sympathetic. Yes, they have went out of their way to mass cleanse Fenris and kill the Space Wolves, but a lot of people hate them. However, it has been established by various books that the majority of the Sons hate being Tzeentch puppets. When attacking the Imperium, most sorcerers seek for justice or forbidden knowledge. Magnus himself hates serving the Chaos God even though his mind was reshaped to serve. The Primarch and his Legion are basically slaves. The Thousands Sons also attacked the Sons of Horus, which led to the events that saved the Shattered legions.

In short, there are only two possible chances for salvation since the Rubric:

1. Ahriman's mission to save his brothers leads to a possible separation of the Legion from Chaos. Seeing how well that worked the first two times he tried his Rubric, a third one is not any more likely to work.
2. If the separation of Magnus' soul is possible. It could be undone in theory (although given the nature of Daemon Princes, the chances of this are abysmal), but Magnus has actively prevented the Thousand Sons from trying.

In conclusion, to put it bluntly, it is near impossible. If it were to happen, most of the Legion is likely to die in the process. Besides, Magnus most likely doesn't want to go back to the Imperium anymore anyway. Fury of Magnus reveals that the Emperor offered him a chance to return to the Imperial fold at the head of the Grey Knights, and Magnus rejected it because it would have meant abandoning his sons to Chaos, which he considered too dear a price to pay. Furthermore, he attempted to kill the Emperor and forever repudiated him afterward, and the odds of his having changed his mind after 10,000 years of constant war are pretty small. It was originally thought that if the Thousand Sons found out about the Sons of Horus' involvement in the destruction of Prospero, Magnus would go after him. As it turns out, though, Magnus already knew that Horus had interfered by changing Russ' orders from "arrest Magnus and haul his ass back to Terra" to "wipe him and his legion off the face of the galaxy", and he still blames the Emperor and Malcador for sending the primarch and legion because Magnus is a fucking idiot.

Legion Disposition

Pre-Heresy

The Thousand Sons had Nine Fellowships, each of which roughly equivalent to a normal Chapter. The Legionaries of the Fellowships were further divided into Cults, each with their own Psychic Specialty. They are listed below in no particular order.

• Corvidae: The Corvidae were the Seers of the Thousand Sons. They traveled the Warp in search of all outcomes of the future. Ahriman was their Magister Templi. Magnus' equerry, Amon, who was his adoptive father, was also Corvidae.
• Pyrae: As the name suggests, the Pyrae were a Cult focused on offensive spells, mainly fire (Perhaps they like the Salamanders). Khalophis was the Magister Templi, who died from warp overload at the Burning of Prospero, due to possessing a warlord titan, killing many Vikings.
• Raptora: The Raptora used powers of Telekinesis to form kine shields and punch shit with their mind. Their Magister Templi was Phosis T’kar, one of the few marines who managed to scare the shit out of a Custodian.
• Pavoni: The Pavoni were the masters of Biomancy and Fleshcrafting, and were known to be vain enough to rival the Emperor's Children. Their Magister Templi is Haathor Maat, who was so beautiful Fulgrim tried to get him for his Legion once.
• Athanaeans: The Athanaeans were the telepaths of the Thousand Sons, and were capable of mind control (They usually couldn't control someone completely, merely alter their thoughts - e.g. make them think enemies were allies.) and mind reading. They were useful in finding out enemy strategies. Their Magister Templi was Baleq Uthizzar.

Post-Heresy

After the Rubric of Ahriman, Magnus replaced the Legion's Nine Fellowships with Nine Cults. Each of them specializing in a facet of Tzeentch. while these cults may wax and wane in power, there are always nine.

At the top of the Legion is Magnus the Red and his Rehati. Each of the Rehati is a Magister Templi, and one of the most powerful and favored Daemon Princes or Exalted Sorcerers in the legion. At the head of each Cult is a Magister Templi and his coven of nine powerful Exalted Sorcerers or Daemon Princes, who help him run the Cult. These Cults are a gathering of unnumbered Sects that are lead by Sorcerers, who, whilst inherently self-serving, are nonetheless working towards the same common purpose.

• Cult of Prophecy: These guys are guided by the incessant whispers that bleed from the warp. They divine the outcomes of multiple futures, and seek out events that can be twisted to their own purpose.
• Cult of Time: They view the flow of time as an unwrought resource that can be shaped into a weapon. By their victories, ripples are sent both forwards and backwards in time, so that their enemies may be defeated before they are even engaged. One particularly cool example of a Time Sorcerer is when a squad of Imperial Fists were forced to relive the same events over and over until all of them died.
• Cult of Mutation: They embrace the warping of flesh, and also the warping of reality itself. By their hand civilised planets are transformed into Daemon worlds, and entire populations moulded into grotesque abominations and various assorted gribblies.
• Cult of Scheming: To them, the creation of convoluted plots is to them a form of profane worship. Every conquest and withdrawal is a perfectly planned manoeuvre, a single step that leads towards some unseen master stroke. Naturally, the phrase Just As Planned applies most naturally to these guys.
• Cult of Magic: Dedicated to the pure and unfettered use of sorcery, their bloody campaigns are launched to secure arcane objects held by Imperial, xenos and other Chaos forces, making them part Tomb Raider part Space Wizard. These artefacts are used as foci in the weaving of devastating spells.
• Cult of Knowledge: These guys are drawn to the myriad curiosities hidden throughout the galaxy, particularly tomes of eldritch learnings, dark secrets and paradoxical logics. Through such lore, the cult is able to extrapolate the weaknesses in their enemies, and in the fabric of reality itself.
• Cult of Change: Anathema to order. They are the great unravellers, launching their armies wherever civilisation and reason exist. Similarly, in places of utter anarchy, the cult appears to impose their ever-shifting will. The most chaotic of the bunch, tied with the Cult of Mutation.
• Cult of Duplicity: Is a unique within the Legion in that it both is and is not guided by a unified desire. The Sorcerers of this cult are by their very nature deceivers, at once appearing fractured and singular in their purpose. As such, it is impossible to know whether the sects within the cult are acting independently or as part of a singular, terrifying plan.
• Cult of Manipulation: Using its tendrillar web of influence to sway the actions of its enemies. Vast networks of mortal and daemonic spies allow the cult to oversee their plots as they unfold through assassination, possession and the wreaking of pure havoc. Easily some of the most dickish.

Consisting of multiple Thrallbands, each Sect is lead by an Arch Magister who's an Exalted Sorcerer or a Daemon Prince with his Retinue, Familiars and Bodyguards. They have their own color scheme that is assigned by their Arch Magister, to distinguish them from other Sects. Thrallbands consist of nine lesser Sorcerer Thralls under the command of a Magister, who is a Sorcerer, Exalted Sorcerer or Daemon Prince. Beneath the Magister and his favorite wizards are lesser thralls – Aspiring Sorcerers and Scarab Occult Sorcerers who direct the ranks of lifeless Rubricae and Scarab Occult Terminators. Thrallbands may go on their missions alone, or with other Thrallbands. Some Thrallbands may have been exiled from Sortiarius, or left to do their own thing. Regardless, they always work towards furthering the Cult's goals, whether they know it or not.

Not much detail is given as to how the Thousand Sons' armory of vehicles works post-rubric, beyond the fact that they do still have and use vehicles, old legion leftovers as well as new stuff they stole. It's probably safe to assume that it's all maintained and piloted either by human cultists or Tzaangors these days with maybe a few leftover Rubric Techmarinesnomancers.

Also, it should be reminded that they are still NEEEERDS to their core as, when or if there is a Chaos raid on a Imperial planet and the Thousand Sons are called, they only end up pissing off the local Cult leader. Why? Because rather than raping and pillaging like any good Chaos member, the Thousand Sons just ends up visiting the local museum, library or private art collection for a sight-seeing tour. Also, rather than trying to overthrow or destabilise an Imperial world like most Chaos-affiliated factions, the Thousand Sons use their sponsored Cults to become collectors of items and people they are interested in. This means that when summoned, these bookworms tend to simply leave with the Cult's artefacts and best sorcerous practitioners not long after. Pissing off their allies even further. Hmmm...a small army of space geeks swooping down and being 'graciously gifted' with artifacts that is not theirs? Where have we heard this before?

Tl;dr, they are one of the nicest factions of Chaos Space Marines, but Tzeentch-damn it are they unreliable.

Notable Thrallbands

• The Prodigal Sons: Ahriman's Warband. They're the unofficial posterboys of the Sons.
• The Tizcan Host: They are known for their delusion that the Rubric is a feasible way of achieving purity, and they announce their prescence on the battlefield by launching down massive iridescent rays of light. As you do.
• The Sect of the Red Echo: Once known for their calmness, they are now known for causing such havoc that those in the Cult of Time can supposedly hear the screams of their victims in the Warp following them wherever they go.
• The Crystal Harbingers: The cool kids that get to dive into the very centers of the Silver Tower of Tzeentchs to find out various secrets, daemonic bargains, and other such chaotic things to use to fuck with the Imperium.
• The Hermetic Blades: As a Sub-Sect of the Cult of Mutation, the Hermetic Blades believe that flesh is a prison of the soul (or at least, those in the Blades that have flesh do). They tend to take prisoners back to Sortarius to subject them to gruesome and soulflaying tortures.
• The Blades of Magnus: One of the more unique and interesting Warbands. The Blades of Magnus are apart of the Cult of Manipulation and had a very very radical plan. They spent ten thousand years trying to FREE Magnus's soul from the control of that bird birdy bastard Tzeentch. This unfortunately did not go just as planned and they had their souls annihilated while Magnus psychically possess their bodies like automatons. They now are refer as the One Who Was (Insert Name) and walk around as Magnus' puppets. This not only tells us how much the Thousand Sons hate Tzeentch but that they do want to be free. Also RIP.
• The Brotherhood of Dust: A warband created by Amon, exiled Captain of the 9th Relationship, that aimed to free the Legion from Rubric by destroying it. They tried to capture Ahriman to get his knowledge on the curse, but failed and were mostly destroyed; with Amon being bested by Ahriman. The majority were absorbed into the Prodigal Sons.

Connections with the Blood Ravens?

It's never proven to be absolutely canon, but in the "A Thousand Sons" novel from the Horus Heresy book series, there are some hints that the Blood Ravens stemmed from a Thousand Sons cult who remained loyal to the Emperor, which was a large force of Thousand Sons marines who were sent outside Prospero before the Space Wolves came to fuck the whole planet over. Specifically, the most painfully obvious of the hints is this particular line from the novel where a remembrancer is using divination:

It's too late... the Wolf is at the door and it hungers for blood. Oh, Throne... no, the blood! The Ravens, I see them too. The lost sons and a Raven of blood. They cry out for salvation and knowledge, but it is denied!

Since these Marines never fought the Space Wolves and weren't drawn into Magnus' plans of heresy and revenge, or didn't even hear about it, after getting their planet bombed, they remained loyal to the Emprah. Probably because they, like Leman Russ, discovered after the fact that it was a trick. Sucks to be Russ when he found out.

In the Age of Darkness short story Rebirth, Revuel Arvida is the last survivor of a scouting party from a ship that made it back to Prospero. The end of the story has him saying "knowledge is power" and focusing on the raven of the Corvidae cult on his pauldron (also, the rest of his armour is red). He gets off of Prospero with the help of the White Scars later, after surviving for ages alone without food or water whilst fighting psychneuin, then getting involved in a fight against Mortarion's bodyguards (need we add that this was a fight between the Terminator elites of two Legions, and Arvida survived despite being clad in regular power armour), and finally creating a psychic beacon to get his and the Scars' arses off the planet. Except that wasn't final, as he spent four years at war beside the Scars, fighting the flesh-change, bitch-slapping Eidolon with his psychic powers and guiding the entire Legion fleet to Terra through the Webway. Compare his name to "Azariah Vidya," the earliest recorded (though not the first) Chapter Master of the Blood Ravens.

Eventually though it was revealed that Arvida merged with his Tutelary spirit and/or a broken Shard of Magnus which he left behind on Terra when he broke the Golden Throne. The resulting amalgamation cured Arvida's body of mutations (but sealed around one of his eyes with scar tissue) and took the name "Ianius" (also the name of his Tutelary), later to be known as Janus, the founder and the first Supreme Grand Master of the Grey Knights, especially since physical descriptions of Janus show him with a squint in one of his eyes. Much shit was flipped by TS, BR, and GK fans that day, while fans of Arvida were just glad to know that his tale wouldn't end as a That Which Must Not Be Named...On the other hand, it does not explain what happened to his gene-seed (assuming it was replaced by implants from the Emperor like Epimethius having his Dark Angel gene-seed replaced and sealed).

And note that the Blood Ravens have no idea which legion or chapter they originally came from and the fact that they produce an unusually higher number of Psykers than your average marine chapter and the Thousand Sons were known to have a large number of Psykers in their legion, as well as having a fetish for various flavours of knowledge. Also, the Thousand Sons' pre-heresy colours are strikingly similar to the Blood Ravens', the only difference is that instead of a white trim, the Blood Ravens use black, but the armour's overall colour and their helmet's visor colour are virtually the same.

Additionally, certain records were found upon Kronus that alluded to the Chapter's origin, yet Thule had them destroyed. Some suggest that the evidence was so damning as to link them to prove this theory. Alternatively, it may simply be that the records were in fact Azariah Kyras' perverted /d/eviant porn stash and Thule destroyed it because of the sheer amount of extra-heresy it contains that it would drive any lesser man to insanity.

There is some more evidence that the Blood Ravens are a Thousand Sons offshoot in the book Dawn of War: Tempest, but that was written by C.S. Goto, so take it with a grain of salt.

The November 2016 issue of White Dwarf, and later the July 2019 issue, almost explicitly state that Blood Ravens are an offshoot of the Thousand Sons, although the reason why they show no symptoms of the Flesh Change is not explained.

In 2023 with the release of the newest Horus Heresy black book, the Siege of Cthonia, we have a confirmed loyalist off shoot detachment of Thousand Sons, led by Magister Sul Kontep, who went to Terra to be arrested after the events of Prospero. They got sent to Cthonia accompanied by some Sisters of Silence as watchdogs. Fortunately, they got to kick plenty of ass and were able to escape the planet alongside Imperial Fists Castellan Evander Garrius. It's also said that they've survived as far as the Scouring.

"Rather nice chaps, I thought."

– Brother-Captain Jefferies, Classy Marines Fourth Company

Notable Members

• Magnus the Red: Primarch of the Thousand Sons, Master of Prospero, the Crimson King. Did nothing wrong. He was, is, and forever will be a giant fucking nerd who is obsessed with collecting knowledge about everything, even the stuff he should probably have left alone.
• Ahzek Ahriman: Chief Librarian, Captain of the 1st Fellowship, and Magister-Templi of the Corvidae. Enacted the Rubric to try and stop the flesh-change from destroying the legion, and it totally worked, from a certain point of view. Has spent every hour of every day since trying to find a way into the Black Library so he can work out how to reverse the Rubric and restore the Sons to their normal selves. Has managed to collect a huge warband along the way and recently made up with Papa Magnus so they could go kick Space Wolf ass together.
• Iskandar Khayon: Some sorcerer who decided that the post-Heresy Thousand Sons were lame and joined Abaddon's new boy band instead. Claims to have kicked Magnus' ass personally to make him bitch down to the Warmaster. Has a big tiddy goth Dark Eldar gf, a bitchin' sword made out of shards of Sanguinius' own weapon, and a Yugioh deck of bound daemons he can summon and dismiss whenever he wants.
• Revuel Arvida: Random sergeant of the 4th Fellowship, hence why he wasn't on Prospero when the Space Wolves showed up to ask Magnus to come quietly, but came home later and shat his power armour when he saw what had happened. Ultimately joined up with the White Scars and helped them get back to Terra. The HH authors were continually teasing that he might be the founder of the Blood Ravens, but then they yanked the rug out from under everyone by fusing him with a shard of Magnus to create Janus, the first Supreme Grand Master of the Grey Knights.
• Sanakht: The best swordsman in the Thousand Sons, making him basically the lone jock in a legion full of D&D playing nerds. He and Ahriman saved each other's lives, but later on Sanakht tried to betray Ahriman, who of course saw it coming, outplayed him, and used him as a host for the Athenaeum of Kallimakus.
• Amon: Captain of the 9th Fellowship, Commander of the Order of Blindness and Magnus' equerry. Looks like Ben Kingsley. He was Magnus' first tutor after the primarch fetched up on Prospero and was one of the first Prosperines inducted into the Legion. Ahriman killed him after the Heresy and took his armour.
• Phosis T'kar: Bro-tier Captain of the 2nd Fellowship, and Magister Templi of the Raptora Cult, who realised he was becoming a monster when he succumbed to the flesh-change and let Constantin Valdor kill him rather than deteriorate into a mindless blob.
• Madox: Chaos Sorcerer of the Thousand Sons. Has a long-running rivalry with Ragnar Blackmane because Blackmane keeps fucking up his plans. Has been "killed" several times, but it didn't stick until Blackmane stabbed him right in the middle of his face with the Spear of Russ while he was trying to enact a ritual to corrupt the Space Wolves' gene-seed reserves. Even after that, though, there are rumors that he's still alive.

Daily Rituals of the Thousand Sons

• 04:00 - Morning Reveille: The Thousand Sons (at least the fleshbags) awake from their sarcophagi.

• 04:10 - Rubric Inspection: The Thousand Sons Sorcerers inspect the Rubric Marines to see if some sense of normalcy has returned to them.

• 05:00 - Morning Prayer: The Thousand Sons gather to pray that Tzeentch won't fuck them over and that the Imperium hasn't yet weaponized vacuum cleaners.

• 06:00 - Morning Firing and Sorcery Rites: The Thousand Sons practice their shooting and magical skills on warp beasts.

• 08:00 - Battle Practice: The Thousand Sons descend upon the twisted Pyramids on Sortiarius to test out their combat prowess.

• 09:00 - Morning Meal: A morning meal is handed out to the non-Rubric Thousand Sons by the legion's psychic serfs. The Thousand Sons are more forgiving to their serfs as they are most likely psychic and thus, more likely to share common kinship.

• 09:15 - Tactical Indoctrination: The Thousand Sons congregate and form plans to attract psykers from the Imperium and gather unknown knowledge.

• 10:00 - Midday Prayers: The Thousand Sons gather to pray that Tzeentch won't fuck them over again.

• 11:00 - Midday Meal: A light meal is prepared by the psychic serfs.

• 12:00 - Sorcery Training: The Thousand Sons Sorcerers practice their magic tricks to further harness the warp.

• 13:00 - Evening Firing and Sorcery Rites: The Thousand Sons practice their shooting and magical skills on even more warp beasts.

• 15:00 - Battle Practice: The Thousand Sons continue to train in CQC so they can one day beat the fucking furries.

• 16:00 - Re-Education Time: The Thousand Sons lecture captured non-psychic Imperial humans on why their prejudice towards psykers are bad and why they should feel bad before sending them off as laborers. At the same time, they lecture captured psykers on why the Thousand Sons are there to protect and nurture them and why psykers are the next step in human evolution.

• 18:00 - Evening Meal: A feast is prepared by the psychic serfs, which are cooked from the warp beasts that were hunted in the morning and afternoon.

• 19:00 - Meeting up with Magnus: The Thousand Sons meet with their Primarch on issues concerning them such as the proposal to create a republic just to piss off the Imperium, equality between psykers and non-psykers, the state of the Imperium and humanity as a whole, Tzeentch being a dickhead and why he should not be trusted and why knowledge is power.

• 20:00 - Sending 'Gifts' to the family: The Thousand Sons secretly steal some loyalist equipment and secretly give it to the Blood Ravens out of family kinship - the Blood Ravens have yet to realize the origin of these heretical trade deals. The Thousand Sons also try and send gifts and 'sorry' cards to their only friends, the White Scars, Emperor's Children and Blood Angels for supporting them even during the failure of the Nikea Council. Suffice to say the gifts (except those given to the Blood Ravens) are always destroyed by the Inquisition.

• 21:00 - Nerdin' Out: The Thousand Sons nerd out in the great libraries on Sortiarius. Some use their free time to train captured psykers on how to safely use the warp while others continue to berate captured non-psykers on why the Imperium is bad. Some play video games and talk about ancient Terran epics such as Star Wars and Star Trek, coincidentally those who play online video games may accidentally encounter Dante and co. doing the exact same thing. Some venture back to their old home of Prospero to get some lost relics/knowledge.

• 24:00 - Rest Period: The Thousand Sons rest in their sarcophagi.

Writefaggotry

• Ballad of the Thousand Sons
• Thousand Son and Guardswoman
• Confessions of a Wayward Son

See Also

• Codex - Thousand Sons
• Feel free to play this whenever your sorcerers are unleashing enough psychic dakka to put the Imperial Guard to shame.
• Or this.
• Tactics on how to play them.

Gallery

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  Even with all of his powers, Tzeentch will never give up, even to Ahriman, the greatest of all riddles.

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  eh, warp lollipop.

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  HUH. OK. RAPTORS. THAT MAKES SENSE...

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  Where are the Sorcerer Dreadnoughts GW? Then again, due to the state of the sons right now, it may be impossible to make dreadnoughts in the conventional sense.

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  The golden years

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  ALL IS BUST

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  The Dust Terminators

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The Traitor Legions and Warbands of Chaos
Chaos Legions:	Alpha Legion - Black Legion - Death Guard Emperor's Children - Iron Warriors - Night Lords Thousand Sons - Word Bearers - World Eaters
Legion Offshoots:	Apostles of Contagion - Bloodborn - Broken Aquila Foresworn - Mouldering Claw - Plague Fleet - Prodigal Sons The Consortium - Warband of Subsector Aurelia
Fallen Chapters (Including Judged):	Adharon's Reavers - Blood Gorgons - Company of Misery Corpus Brethren - Crimson Slaughter - Deathmongers Death Shadows - Invocators - Lords of Decay Oracles of Change - Red Corsairs - Shriven The Brazen Beasts - The Flawless Host - The Scourged Skyrar's Dark Wolves - Steel Cobras - Voidrippers
Unknown/ Other:	Apostles of Minthras - Claws of Lorek - Disciples of Destruction Dragon Warriors - Extinction Angels - Hakanor's Reavers - Punishers The Cleaved - The Purge - The Pyre - Sons of Malice - Sons of Vengeance The Reborn - Violators - Warp Ghosts - Bleak Brotherhood