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Ahriman

From Lexicanum

Ahriman is a Chaos Space Marine special character of the Thousand Sons. He is also called the sorcerer of the Red Cyclops.

Before the events of the Horus Heresy, Ahriman had shared his Primarch's obsession with arcane mysteries and had come to be keeper of the now mythical Book of Magnus, a tome of incalculable sorcerous power.

It may have been knowledge gleaned from that very tome with which Ahriman conjured his now infamous master spell. The result of the so called 'Rubric of Ahriman', while imperfect, is said to have satisfied Ahriman in its consequence. In essence, it turned all the warriors without psychic abilities into mindless automata, and greatly amplified the abilities of all who had more then a spark. Ahriman was a veteran Thousand Son from before the coming of Magnus the Red, and Ahriman's revulsion at the corruption of the Legion was so great that even the terrible price of reversing it was not too high. Ahriman attempted the spell at first, alone. He was unsuccessful, and later it required a large Cabal of Sorcerers to assist him, who were only motivated to do so upon Magnus' elevation to Daemon Prince. The last vestiges of humanity were purged from the Thousand Sons, and few desired the resulting spawndom.

Magnus was not of like mind, however. So great was his wrath when the cabal was discovered that the Primarch threatened to obliterate them utterly, but the very patron who had worked the mutations upon them in the first place was said to have intervened. Who can say what the most enigmatic and capricious of entities intended? In any event, the Daemon Prince stayed his hand, instead banishing Ahriman from the Planet of Sorcerers and condemning him to wander the Eye of Terror and beyond in a hopeless quest to understand the Chaos god Tzeentch.

For his part, Ahriman refuses to acknowledge Chaos as his master. Across the ensuing millennia he has become a scourge, raiding ancient museums, librarium, scholaria and reclusia, places of learning, religion and contemplative thought. He seeks to acquire artifacts, data, or even persons he believes can lead him to mastery over the way of the sorcerer. He fosters cults on dozens of worlds at a time, providing cult magi with sorcerous power until such time as they have acquired some antiquarian trinket or satisfied another of Ahriman demands before turning the wrath of his warband upon them. It is rumoured that Ahriman has of late turned his relentless predation upon the Eldar, determined in his belief that the lost knowledge he seeks can be found in that darkest of halls of enlightenment, the vast repository of arcana referred to in whispers as the Black Library of Chaos.