Arms of Asura

Arms of Asura
Uknown
Battle Cry	Unknown
Number	XV
Successor Chapters	Unknown
Primarch	Anshul the Resplendent
Homeworld	Ravana
Specialty	Daemonic Posession and religious ritual.
Allegiance	Traitors
Colours	Unknown

This page is a work in progress, part of the Imperium Asunder project, a fan remake of the warhammer 40 000 history.

History

Great Crusade

The Arms of Asura had a less aggressive role in the Crusade than many of their fellows, their Primarch, Anshul, being among the last of his brothers to be discovered by Imperial forces. The patient and kind disposition of their Primarch, as well as the drive toward scholarly arts and the fact that much of the Legion's number was drawn from the downtrodden of their homeworld, made the Arms of Asura primary suited to peacekeeping and defense. Anshul and his sons spent much of their time ensuring that the planets within the Emperor's growing sphere of influence were transitioned into blessed service as painlessly as possible, crushing or negotiating a pre-emptive end to revolts that threatened to disrupt this process. They were often seen as guardians and councilors, and in many instances sought to enrich the cultures of annexed planets that were considered barbaric or backward, bringing them into the fold of civilization.

Instrumental in this process and this ethos in general was the Asuran philosophy. Anshul was steeped in the mysticism of his home planet, and he never truly abandoned his religious roots, merely adapting the Asuran Temple and its teachings to suit the needs of the Imperial Truth. The religion was taught among his Astartes as parable, a means of enshrining the importance of wisdom and tradition, and instilling values which Anshul believed necessary for the future of the burgeoning Imperium. As the Crusade progressed, however, and the vast sea of stars between Anshul, out on the fringes of Imperial influence, and the Emperor, cloistered in his laboratory on Terra, widened, Anshul found himself becoming ever more literal with his teachings. It was during this time that Anshul, his Legion alongside him, began to weave the rituals of his home planet not only into their mindset, but into their practices.

It was on the distant world of Komarl, far from the Emperor's light, that Anshul and his Legion would begin their fall from grace.

A sparsely-populated Feral World, Komarl was almost entirely oceanic, its sparse tracts of hot, dry land housing minor tribes of roaming human savages. As the Arms of Asura went about the process of bringing the world into the embrace of the Imperial Truth, they were quick to notice that mutation was unusually rampant throughout the planet's small population. Upon further investigation, Anshul was astounded to find the world's oceans littered with ruins and relics almost eerily similar to those found on Ravana - including the mighty flying cities known as Vimanas. Overcome by curiosity, the Arms of Asura began a great excavation, putting the planet's population to work at the endeavor of unearthing and renovating these ancient artifacts. Eventually they managed to draw even the greatest of these constructs, vast Vimanas far larger than any of those found on Ravana, from the depths of the world's seas, finding that these ancient cities were designed to sail the void between stars. Impelling them into orbit around Komarl, the Arms of Asura began to operate in secret from these massive ships, reporting themselves fleetbound while they continued to pick the planet clean of its secrets. Anshul and his sons delved deeper and deeper into the arcane lore from which the Asuran Temple on his homeworld had derived its practices, finding themselves enthralled by this relic of their shared past. The more they studied and further they delved, the clearer it became to Anshul that truth - real truth - and the Imperial Truth were simply incompatible, and his father's efforts were miring the galaxy in a great lie.

Torn and confused, Anshul meditated upon the issue in the heart of one of the vast Vimanas, hoping to find some form of reconciliation between the things he had learned and the laws of his father. Instead, out in the dark of his own mind, he touched the surface of something great and terrible. He felt it strike through him like a lance, cleaving to his very core, and in that instant, he knew that the Asura was the only truth in the universe, and that he could no longer tolerate the Emperor's grand illusion. Eyes blazing with revelation, he announced to his sons that things would have to change, the words flowing from him as though guided by the hand of some vast presence. The time of the Emperor would soon end. The time of the lie was over, and it was their responsibility, as the pious of the Asura, to spread the truth.

Primarch

Anshul the Resplendent

Also known as The Wise One, or the Prince of Four Crowns, Anshul was cast far from the Emperor's light, his drop pod landing on the distant world of Ravana, found in the furthest reaches of what would later become the Jade Empire. Ravana was a brutal Death World, its surface smothered by steaming, primordial jungles and immense rivers, and prowled by all manner of vicious alien predators. The ruins of a lost, Golden Age civilization lie strewn across the landscape, emanating a baleful radiation that twisted much of Ravana's fauna and flora.

In the distant past, the ruling castes of Ravana unearthed the greatest of these constructs, the Vimanas, and used them as vast, flying cities, securing them from the dangers of the lands below. The cost of maintaining these massive artifacts was great, however, and they demanded constant refueling. So it was that the lowest of servant castes was condemned to live a life of peril upon the surface of Ravana, their culture molded around the refueling and maintenance of the mighty Vimanas, which eventually came to be bestowed with a religious significance as the dwelling places of those chosen by heaven. In time, the close proximity of the Vimanic castes to the radioactive technologies of the constructs turned them into a set of disparate abhuman species, and so the world of Ravana came to be ruled by mutants.

Anshul landed amidst the steaming jungles, and for a while knew only the law of the wild. He had been wracked by the Warp, and emerged from his stasis pod with six unnaturally dexterous arms. When eventually found by the lowly workers of Ravana, they revered him as one chosen by the heavens, and showed him their utmost hospitality.

Soon taken in by one of the noble Vimanic Houses, who recognized his mutations as an auspicious sign, he grew to adulthood in the lap of luxury, afforded an extensive education in a great many fields, from the scientific to the spiritual. Anshul developed a deep-seated love of art and poetry, as well as a scholarly nature that eventually drove him to delve deeply into the mystic religion of Ravana, a cult devoted to the reverence of a twisting, all-changing force known as the Asura. He quickly rose to a position of high influence within the Asuran Temple, becoming renowned for his wisdom and kindness, showing an unprecedented level of mercy and restraint when dealing with the lesser castes.

By the time Anshul was discovered by Imperial forces, the Great Crusade was well underway, and the Emperor had little time for his son. The forces that encountered Anshul were astounded by the deplorable society of Ravana, viewing abhuman supremacy as a subversion of the natural order, but the Emperor could not afford to utterly disown his son. Instead, his discourse with Anshul ensured a slow process of social reformation upon Ravana, where the oppressed non-mutated castes would be gradually uplifted, starting with the decree that, being innocent in their simplicity, only they could be initiated into the greatest of castes - the Arms of Asura Legion.

Culture

The Arms of Asura are cultists first and foremost, viewing themselves as a religious institution first and a military force second. Their enemies are not mankind, nor xenos, nor any individual power - Anshul's sons battle against the Great Illusion, the denial of Chaos and its inherent truth. Those who would prop up the Illusion are merely instruments of its deception, characterized in Legion mythology as frail, insubstantial shadows that believe themselves solid. Military terms have long since been discarded by the Legion. Captains have been replaced by Magisters and Chapter Commanders by Arch-Magisters, along with a dozen other more specific, esoteric designations that make the Legion's hierarchy resemble something more akin to a pentagram than a more typical pyramid structure. At the center of this convoluted pattern is Anshul, the Legion's Primarch, regarded by his devotees as the sole source of light and truth in a universe obfuscated from itself.

Organization

"The Arms of Asura is an unfurling lotus, its petals blooming in resplendent flame." - Lightbringer Madhukant of the First Choir

Little remains of the Arms of Asura's standard Legion hierarchy from prior to the Heresy, the Legion entirely enveloped and transformed by its gradual shift toward mysticism and Chaos-worship. Devoted to the exploration of the divine and the proliferation of truth, the Legion's structure is built around that of a religious organization rather than a military one, its Astartes primarily devoted to spiritualism before war, their martial practices more a means than an end, and in some cases merely incidental to certain ranks. The leadership of the Legion is arcane, steeped in nuance and debate even internally, for Anshul teaches that truth is ever-changing and one's understanding of it must constantly be renewed, but there are certain recognizable patterns in its the Legion's hierarchy that can generally hold true.

The usage of battalions and companies has been dropped entirely. Instead, each functional limb of the Arms of Asura - generally just over a thousand Astartes in number, with a massive support structure of cultists and supplicants - is referred to as a Choir. Each Choir is headed by a Lightbringer, a venerable scholar and warrior of the Legion, formidable in both wisdom and in battlefield prowess. The Choirs are divided into Orders - specifically, the Orders Epistemos, the Orders Aesthetemos, the Orders Homilos, the Orders Theologos, and the Orders Ethos. Governed by a religious leader with titles unique to each Order (i.e. Epistemagos, Aesthetemagos, etc), these organizations are devoted primarily to their associated religious studies, and are further divided on the basis of doctrinal and martial differences into Covens, each one lead by an Arch-Magister (and, below him, several Magisters).