Warhammer 40K: Erebus, Father Of the Horus Heresy
Today, delve into the single man most responsible for the Horus Heresy. The father of lies – First Chaplain Erebus of the Word Bearers.
In Greek mythology, Erebus is the son of the primordial god Chaos. In Warhammer 40,000 he is one of the most prominent members of the Word Bearers Chaos Space Marines and a member of the Dark Council of Sicarus. He was the harbinger of the Horus Heresy, instrumental in converting first Lorgar and then Horus to Chaos. Erebus refers to himself as the Hand of Destiny, the mortal instrument of the plans of the Ruinous Powers.
Lorgar, Primarch of the Word Bearers
First Chaplain
It is unknown exactly how or when Erebus fell to the Dark Powers, though a likely time would have been the Battle of Davin and his discovery of the Serpent Lodge during the Great Crusade. However, at the onset of the Heresy and the end of the Great Crusade, Erebus held the prestigious position of First Chaplain of the Word Bearers Legion. He was a fearsome and intimidating Astartes warrior, sections of the Book of Lorgar tattooed across his shaven scalp to terrify his enemies.
Feeling abject humiliation after the Emperor’s punishment for their legion’s deification of him, Erebus began to tell Lorgar that there were other gods in the universe that could be worshiped. Thus, Erebus, aided by Kor Phaeron, was able to slowly poison Lorgar into accepting Chaos. After the pilgrimage of the Word Bearers into the Eye of Terror, Lorgar and his legion fully embraced Chaos.
Erebus would play a vital role in his legion’s new plans. It is unknown when Erebus himself began worshiping Chaos, but it may have been through his faith in the Covenant of Colchis before joining Lorgar, which worshiped aspects of the Chaos Gods. Like Kor Phaeron, Erebus kept these secrets from his primarch.
Some time before the time of first contact with the Interex, Erebus began associating with the Luna Wolves legion and with the Warmaster in particular. During negotiations with the Interex, Erebus stole an archaic anathame sword from their closely guarded Hall of Devices, precipitating the war. This was not simply out of greed – it was all part of his carefully managed plan to corrupt the Warmaster and bring him under the influence of his own secret masters, the Warp powers of Chaos.
Erebus gave the weapon to the traitor Governor of the planet Davin, Eugen Temba, and played Horus’s pride to get him to lead his expedition fleet back to Davin and personally bring it back to compliance. Temba played his part, wounding Horus with the anathame as Erebus intended, and the Luna Wolves’ apothecaries couldn’t heal his wounds.
Erebus suggested to the Mournival that Davin’s Serpent Lodge could heal their primarch. The grief-stricken Ezekyle Abaddon and Horus Aximand turned Horus over to their care, and Erebus projected himself into Horus’s fever visions disguised as the late Hastur Sejanus. Opposed by Magnus the Red, Erebus won over Horus to his cause with visions of a future that deified the Emperor and a select few primarchs, rejected the rest, and had seemingly forgotten Horus’s contributions compared to the offer of replacing the Emperor and possessing unimaginable power.
Erebus continued to pour honey into Horus’s ear, directing him further from the Great Crusade and pursuing his own ascension. By showing the Warmaster the powers of the Warp and urging him to make pacts with the gods of Chaos, he eventually set Horus on the path to heresy against the Emperor.
The Battles of The Heresy
Along with Horus, Erebus masterminded the Isstvan III betrayal, ever mindful of the need to eliminate those loyalist elements of the Traitor Legions before the war on Terra could begin. Garviel Loken suspected Erebus as a traitor and conspirator, which only led the corrupt Chaplain to add him to the list of doomed Astartes brethren sent down ahead of the virus bomb assault on the planet. Erebus remained with Horus throughout the Heresy, acting as his dark spiritual adviser and co-conspirator.
He later proved instrumental in the aftermath of the Battle of Calth, successfully summoning the Ruinstorm to effectively split the Imperium in two. During the same battle, he captured and brainwashed Tylos Rubio into becoming a sleeper agent to one day assassinate Malcador. Later, during the Shadow Crusade, Erebus manipulated Argel Tal to his demise after foreseeing that the Gal Vorbak master would interfere with Kharn‘s destiny of becoming the Blessed of Khorne.
As Kharn and Tal were close comrades, Erebus was nearly killed by the World Eater after he discovered his hand in his friend’s death. Erebus was viciously beaten by Kharn before being forced to teleport himself from the Conqueror. Erebus again suffered humiliation after the Battle of Signus Prime, a plan he initiated despite repeated warnings that it would fail from Lorgar. There, he let his arrogance slip in Horus’s presence, blaming the Warmaster for disrupting his plans for the Blood Angels and Sanguinius. Horus punished him for his insolence by flaying Erebus’s heavily tattooed face from his skull with his own athame.
Kharn nearly killed Erebus in retribution for the death of Argel Tal.
Erebus, his face regenerating slowly but now horribly mutated, later reappeared to dispatch a force of Word Bearers under Valdrekk Elias and Barthusa Narek in order to acquire the Fulgurite. After Elias attempted to betray Erebus, he reappeared in person on Traoris to kill his apprentice, give John Grammaticus the Fulgurite, and allow him to leave with it. Erebus, by this point, had been banished by both Horus and Lorgar but still viewed himself as the shadow king of the Heresy who was closest to the Dark Gods.
Erebus on the Vengeful Spirit
After The Heresy
Erebus is currently a member of the Dark Council, the ruling body of Sicarus and is often engaging in power struggles for control of the Legion with Kor Phaeron. During the 13th Black Crusade of Abaddon the Despoiler, Erebus would appear leading an army of Word Bearers across the Cadian Sector, sacrificing millions of human captives to summon a vast army of Daemons across the Sector.
Do you think there is a better villain in the Grimdark than Erebus?
