Pacha the Earthquake
| Pacha the Earthquake | |
|---|---|
| |
| Title/Honours |
The Earthquake |
| Discovered (world) |
Suyu IV |
| Discovered (period) |
854.M30 |
| Legion | |
| Great Crusade Command |
Primarch, 225th Expeditionary fleet |
| Heraldry/Sigil |
|
| Unique Weapon |
Resolve, a massive adamantium warhammer |
| Distinguishing Traits |
Cheerful, Strong, Untiring |
| Flaws |
Sub-par Intelligence (for a Primarch) |
| Role |
Loyalist |
| Fate |
Merges with the Infinity Circuit in Apu, consciousness dissipating |
This page is part of the Warmasters Triumvirate, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe. See the Warmasters Triumvirate page for more information on the Alternate Universe.
Pacha the Earthquake is the Primarch of the Golden Mountains Space Marine Legion. The most physically imposing of his brothers, his cheerful personality caused him to be well-liked; and he was a master at melee combat, particularly in terrains that would normally be hampering to a warrior of his size. Despite his outward friendliness to most other Primarchs, he intuited many darker secrets about his brothers, but due to his intuition failing him before in the past, decided to never act upon them. When most of these would prove themselves true at the height of the Brotherwar, this left the Primarch blaming himself for allowing the Brotherwar to happen, and ultimately for the fall of the Imperium of Man to its current state, which led him into a path that led to his ultimate fate of his soul dissipating in an Eldar Infinity Circuit while fighting to defend a planet that by all strategic considerations should've been sacrificed instead.
History
Primarch Origin
When the Ruinous Powers of Chaos took the sons of the Emperor away from his Himalazian gene-labs on Holy Terra, the Primarch of the Golden Mountains was taken to the feudal world known as Suyu IV. There, Pacha was found as a child by a farmer couple in the outskirts of a small village. The couple hadn't had any children yet, and as such took in the child with joy. He learned the ways of the farmer, how to till the earth, build farming platforms in the mountainside, and to sing to the plants to make them grow better. And while Pacha ate as much as three people, he grew strong and full of energy, capable of working more than twice as hard as any other. And not only that, his plant singing made the plants grow noticeably healthier and bountiful. Soon enough, the smiling giant was helping the whole village, the harvests becoming comparable to that of the tales of times long ago.
Naturally, this eventually drew the attention of multiple bandit bands, who became intent on raiding the undefended village's copious food supplies. When they found just a handful of villagers holding improvised weapons and an overgrown man using a board as a makeshift shield as the only defenders, they laughed. They stopped laughing when Pacha charged at them, protected by an armor-like layer of psychic power and his empowered arm swatting the outlaws as if they were overgrown insects, a glancing blow sending them flying into their allies. And no matter how many men and webs they tried to use to pin the giant down, both his unnatural strength and the villagers' help, consisting a barrage of stones from a safe distance made such a feat impossible. They were routed, and that night, in the midst of a celebratory feast, Pacha was named the village's guardian and granted a seat among the elders, a great honor for a man that hadn't lived through even thirty summers.
Tales of the battle reached the word of other villages, and many started to gather around Pacha's village, wanting to benefit from both his protection and his ability to make the harvests more bountiful. The giant seemed to naturally command even when not meaning to do so, and as what seemed to be a budding nation formed, the council was more akin to Pacha and his advisers than a circle of equals. The giant didn't mind taking the burden of leading everyone, although he lamented that the time learning the trade of the ruler took time from his farming activities.
Naturally, a quick-growing nation drew the attention of the rest, and in a quick succession of wars where Pacha proved to be a natural at commanding, fighting and tactics (although he never used weapons beyond his fist and the occasional shield bash-for the giant's strength was too much for any weapon available with the planet's technology to withstand after more than a couple strikes). And soon enough, the entirety of Suyu IV was flying The Earthquake's banner, Pacha receiving the title from the rumble of his steps whenever he charged an enemy formation in his armor.
Despite being in charge of the planet, Pacha still enjoyed keeping a small farm that he took care off in his few free hours when he wasn't sleeping or attending to his duties. And one day, a weary old man arrived. And, while the planet's ruler, the giant still remembered the lessons from his adoptive parents, and the importance of hospitality. As such, he let the old man enter the farm's abode, and prepared him a veritable feast to relieve him of his fatigue. And as they ate, they talked about a variety of topics throughout the night, particularly about the governance of the planet.
And as dawn approached, the old man signaled for Pacha to follow him outside. And placing himself towards where the sun would rise, The Emperor of Mankind assumed his true form, his golden armor glowing with the first rays of sunlight. He told Pacha of his true identity and purpose, and of the Imperium of Man. The giant was one of his children, a Primarch, whose duty was to bring others under the banner of the Emperor and the Imperial Truth. Although saddened that this meant that he'd have to leave his farm behind, Pacha nodded in acceptance of the duty that had just been bestowed upon him.
And while the Imperium's bureaucrats and the Emperor discussed with the elders about the management of the planet and the recruitment of future space marines, Pacha went to met with his children, the IInd Legion. Naturally, the first thing he asked of them was not their martial prowess, but their food. And he found it lacking, as while the II Legion needed cooks due to their geneseed defects, they were clumsy at best when handling food. The giant nodded to himself, and ordered all of his children to follow him to his planet. It was extremely important, he said.
Pacha first took them to the highest peak in the planet, as he had them look at the golden color the mountains took while they bathed in the sun. The giant told them that they would be now called the Golden Mountains, and that their armor would take the colors of his people, the gold, red, and black of Suyu's clothes. He then took the marines to the planet's capital, where he organized a veritable feast, and showed them actual cooking. After the celebration and formally leaving the planet in charge of the elders' council, the primarch and his legion returned to their ships, taking with them a considerable amount of the planet's food, so that they may be able to grow it and learn to eat properly. And as Pacha learned the use of weapons (as the Imperium's technology allowed for weapons that he could wield without breaking them with alacrity) while traveling to his first objective, so did his Legion learn in the art of cooking.
The Great Crusade
As soon as Pacha was deemed to be weapons-competent, the Emperor introduced him to the Primarch of the IVth Legion, Linares. When the two first met, the Earthquake's intuition screamed at him to not trust his brother, as if he had perceived a psychic echo of the two's cultures' previous first encounter. However, Pacha decided to give his brother a chance, and Linares proved to be a true ally and the two's personalities meshed together perfectly, and so did the Golden Mountains' newfound inclination for cooking with the Silver Blades' love for quality spirits. The two became brothers not only in name, but in their mutual treatment, and so did the two Legions' marines. This, however, caused the Primarch to stop fully trusting his intuition, as this time it had been completely wrong.
Pacha took well to his Legion's preferred tactics, with a focus on melee combat and use of minor psyker powers, which were well complemented with the introduction of Plant Singing techniques from Pacha's homeworld to his legion's psykers. However, the Primarch disagreed with the Librarium being placed into a separate power structure, and thus mostly integrated it into the main Legion; his psychically-gifted children being just differentiated by their pauldrons painted a dark purple instead of black. Pacha's naturally humble, simple nature allowed him to easily get close with the locals of any planet his Legion conquered (if a diplomatic integration wasn't possible), allowing him to easily cause the conquered population's loyalty to switch towards the Imperium with ease. The Primarch was the one responsible for bringing Catachan into the fold, the regiment to be recruited from the planet turning twice as deadly when they learned the ways of Plantsinging, becoming able to use the death world's flora as rather deadly weapons.
Similarly, his friendly and open personality caused Pacha to maintain at the very least cordial (if not outright quite friendly) relationships with his fellow Primarchs, Mot Hadad and Zelbezis Dyestes being the only exception. With the former, it was almost a natural reaction to his personality; with the latter, a budding cordiality was destroyed when the Primarch of the Iron Guard insulted the Golden Mountains' cooking. Ultimately, Pacha grew closest to Linares, keeping not quite as close but very similarly affectionate relationships with Lambach Kropor of the Je'She of the Sentinels, Ashur of the Loxodontii, and Raj Vokar of the Titan Marchers. And while Pacha would get some intuitions about things being wrong with some of his brothers (or Ashur's Legion), he never acted upon them, thinking it'd be just like with Linares.
During the council of Nikea, Pacha made a simple and concise, yet clear and logical, defense of the use of psyker powers in the Legion. When the Edict was formalized, the Primarch quickly reorganized his Legion, moving the psyker specialists amongst his children to safer, or outright noncombat roles when possible, as to protect them from harm when deprived of their specializations during combat.
During the Ullanor campaign, under the prong led by Je'She. During the fight, however, Pacha's psychic senses screamed to him when the Emperor was felled by Warboss Urlakk Urg. In a mad rush to save his father, Pacha let his psychic powers flare with his welling emotions, and called all his psyker children to be teleported in, free to deploy their powers as they knew best. This quickly turned the tide in favor of the Golden Mountains, yet utilmately Pacha was unable to affect the outcome.
Yet, he had openly and clearly breached the edict of Nikea, and thus was to be punished. However, what was meant to be a slap on the wrist turned into a massacre when Isekho's estimations of the chemicals needed to knock out a Space Marine of the likes that the Golden Mountains had turned out to be accurate, but for marines which didn't have an until then undiscovered geneseed flaw amongst the Golden Mountains, making them just as vulnerable to poisons as any unaugmented human (with a marine's constitution) would be. When Pacha reached Isekho and promptly informed the Primarch of the Smoke Stalkers of what was going on, the fight ended, but the Golden Mountains had already lost a rather large portion of their marines, and Isekho's marines had suffered plenty of casualties from when Pacha's children realized that their brothers were dying and started retaliating with lethal force. After Isekho effectively fled the planet, Pacha rounded up his surviving children, set up a proper burial for the fallen ones, and retreated to Suyu IV, in order to rebuild his Legion's numbers.
Brotherwar
While the Brotherwar sparked, Pacha remained on Suyu, focusing on rebuilding his legions, taking additional time to double-check his fleet's ships after a whole chapter had been lost in the Warp, not knowing the incident was the result of intentional sabotage. A variety of astropathic messages were received during the process, but the Primarch took no action, based on the reccomendations of his equerry, Quteq, who, based their often unclear and/or contradictory nature, suggested his genesire wait for the situation to become more clear before taking any action.
As the process came to a close, a combined message from Solomon, Kincaid and some Loxodontii Pacha had come to trust warned him of the Brotherwar, asking for the Primarch's help rescuing Ashur, who had been betrayed by most of his Legion and made a prisoner in the Anu. Enraged, Pacha immediately led most of his forces towards the communicated gathering point, leaving only a handful of his veterans and wounded children to finish training the last few aspirants and protect Suyu IV.
However, the expedition was too late, despite the major damage the combined force of three Space Marine legions inflicted upon the Loxodontii. Thus, Pacha led his legion towards Terra, to prepare for the final battle. There, he would fight and defeat Isekho in singular combat, although he was unable to finish the job, as Isekho's personal guard had nearly surrounded the two Primarchs in an effort to retrieve their wounded genesire, and knowing his brother (and his best legionnaires, by having them take him to safety) would not return to the fight anymore, instead settled towards hurrying towards the Imperial Palace, from where he had felt the psychic feedback of Raj's death. Alongside Linares, the two Primarchs would fight and slay Marduk.
Fate & Legacy
Despite his desire to mourn his lost brothers and men, there was much to do, and as soon as Terra was purged of Chaos forces, Pacha set off to cleanse Imperial space from the Chaos warbands roaming and pillaging around, and to combat the spread of the Imperial Cult (although ineffectively). Eventually, he would arrive to a planet near the Eye of Terror that had just begun to be sieged by the Chosen of Hecate, led by Lambach himself. Although taking void control of the planet and cleansing it through Exterminatus would've been the more strategically sound choice, Pacha was not one to leave civilians to die, and thus made planetfall alongside most of his Golden Mountains and the Blazing Condors auxiliary regiment as his fleet engaged the traitors' in combat.
There, Pacha engaged Lambach in singular combat atop a plateau in the tallest mountain of the planet, the Daemon Primarch seemingly having awaited The Earthquake there, as the two's legions and their attached forces fought across the whole planet. The Champion of Nurgle was quick to take the upper hand, his daemonic ascension-granted powers allowing him to slowly but surely overpower Pacha, eventually managing to take out his shield arm. Pacha, however, felt a psychic presence deep in the planet itself, although asleep. He drew upon it and, unknowingly, started to merge with it. Lambach's momentum ground to a halt, as Pacha's wounds and missing parts were covered and or replaced with metals and gemstones that surges from the earth around them. Then, the terrain started to actively change, favoring the loyalist Primarch, whose physical strength and psychic might seemed to grow by the second. However, during the combat, Pacha felt his consciousness slowly start to fade, as if whatever was in the planet dragged him to its depths. Banishing the Daemon Primarch with one final blow of Resolve, Pacha heard Lambach's last snark, commenting that the planet was lost anyways, Chaos corruption spread across it, and that the Earthquake would be lost to the Imperium as well, but that he would eventually return once more to the Materium. Yet, Pacha would not allow this to stand. Drawing the planet's full power for one last time, in a wave of golden psychic energy, he banished all Chaotic influence on the planet, instantly banishing all daemons and depriving both Heretic Astartes and their allies of any blessings they had been granted, as well as purifying the souls of those civilians who still held the Emperor in their hearts. Those that did not immediately retreat were ruthlessly slaughtered, and without their primarch, the Chosen of Hecate fleet retreated into the Eye.
The Golden Mountains seized administrative control of the planet, to protect it from an overeager Inquisition, renaming it Apu in honor of their Primarch. The Second Legion would from then onwards stop actively propagandizing against the Imperial Cult, knowing that without their Primarch, their chances would be few. However, the Legion would remain under a singular command structure, even if the chapters would mostly split on their own, they would still answer to the call of the Legion Master. However, Chapter Master Huáscar would split off from the Legion and defect to the Separatists, unable to accept an Imperium where the Ecclesiarchy ruled supreme. Similarly, Company Captain Camac effectively turned the Avalanche Company into a rogue warband, fighting for the Imperium while still resisting the Ecclesiarchy with military force when possible.
The psychic aura that coats Apu remains the hope of the Golden Mountains that their Primarch might one day return, as no daemon can approach it; calming the nearby Warp currents and allowing the psykers in that planet to lead peaceful, undisturbed lifes.
Rules
N/A