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The only consistent information regarding Mortarion and his homeworld come froma single source: the Stygian Scrolls of Lackland Thorn, a historian and polymathattached to the explorator fleet that discovered Barbarus[6b].

Mortarion crash landed on the world of Barbarus. He came to rest at the site ofa huge battle fought across a vast plain. All around him were strewn the bodiesof the dead and dying for miles in all directions. Barbarus was constantly covered in a poisonous fog and the mountains were ruled by fierce warlords. The normal humans, dropped off millennia before, were forced to live in the lowest areasof the planet, amidst the choking fog. They were condemned to an endless life ofservitude and were in constant fear of those who moved above them[1][6b].

The winner of the battle in which Mortarion had landed was the greatest of the warlords. He was revelling in his victory until the silence was shattered by thescream of a child. It is said this warlord walked the battlefield for a day searching for the child, not stopping once until he found it. For a moment he considered killing the child, but he realised that no human should be able to breath at this height, let alone cry out. He considered what he had found, and then bundled the child up and carried it from the carnage. He now had a son, something hehad craved for years despite his dark magical powers. The warlord christened the child Mortarion, child of death[1][6b].

The warlord tested how high the child could survive in the poisonous atmosphereof Barbarus and then erected a massive wall of black iron. He then moved his man

sion past this to keep it from the child. Perhaps he knew the child was better than him and that one day he would come for the warlord, or perhaps he was afraidof the small child able to breath where no other of his kind could. Whatever hefelt, he trained the child in his image. He taught everything of warfare to Mortarion. He was constantly at the front fighting against all of the other warlords' armies, sometimes of undead humans, sometimes of more daemonic creatures. Mortarion was still human though, and he sought to know of those who dwelled belowthe layer of fog. Eventually Mortarion escaped from his holdings and descended the mountain, the warlord bellowing after him of his treachery and that to returnwould mean death[1][6b].

As Mortarion descended, he began to realise he had found his people. He smelt the scent of food for the first time, he saw people unobstructed by the fog and fo

r the first time he heard laughter, real laughter, not that of the victorious warlord's. He realised that the prey that the warlords fought over was his own people, and with this came a sense of hatred and he vowed to give them justice overtheir oppressors[1][6b].

His acceptance into the community of humans was not easy. He was seen as just another monster from above them, and this was quite true due to his appearance. Hehad pallid skin and hollow, haunted eyes and he terrified most of the inhabitants. He may have been feared, but Mortarion bade his time and helped get the meagre harvest in and was generally a useful and productive member of the society, more than most were. Eventually, the time he had waited for arrived, a way to prove himself in the eyes of his fellow humans[1][6b].

A lesser warlord had arrived with his shambling undead legions and began to carry off those they could for their master's plans. The peasants fought back as best they could, but they only had fire torches and farming implements to defend themselves. Each of them had fought many times like this during their lives and itwas all they could do not to run, let alone put up an effective counter manoeuvre. Until, that is, Mortarion himself joined into the fray. He strode above hisfellow humans, dwarfing all around him. He used an enormous two handed scythe and charged into the ranks of the enemy with the hatred that had been building foryears before and drove them from the village. The warlord smiled and withdrew to the poisonous area above, unaware of the primarch's amazing respiratory abilit

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ies. Mortarion dispatched the warlord and his place among the villagers was sealed[1][6b].

As Mortarion grew he taught the villagers all he knew of warfare. Word of his knowledge and exploits spread and people came from far and wide to learn from him.Soon, villages were becoming strongholds and the villagers were more effectivedefenders. Eventually, Mortarion began to move from village to village, teachingalong the way and if need be, defend the settlements. His ultimate vengeance was always denied to him because of the fog that prevented the humans from pushinghome their attacks[1][6b].

Mortarion then recruited the strongest and most resilient of warriors from the villages he went to. He formed them into elite units and drilled them himself. Heturned blacksmiths from toolworking to weaponsmaking when time allowed and hadthem craft armour. He also armed his warriors with crude air filtration apparatus. It is said that the next attack that descended from the mountains above was repulsed quickly and Mortarion, leading his Death Guard, as they had become known, followed them into the fog above, massacring the remaining forces and killingthe warlord. For the first time in history, Mortarion had led the people into the toxic fog and survived. Mortarion continued to improve the breathing apparatusand campaigned ever higher into the fog. The constant exposure to the toxins hardened his warriors, a useful and transferable skill retained by the Death Guard[1][6b].The Unification Struggle

Mortarion, Primarch of the Death Guard, during the Horus Heresy[Needs Citation]

Only the top of the mountains denied him access. After hundreds of battles and wars, there was just one inaccessible mansion, one which Mortarion knew well, theone where his adoptive father resided. Mortarion returned to his village, confident in the knowledge that he would return for his final battle. When he returned, there was word of an amazing visitor who brought promises of salvation. The mood of the primarch darkened. His final battle had been building for years and he was not happy that someone else would share his glory[1][6b].

People say that Mortarion flattened the wooden door to the banquet room and he found the elders and a stranger who was their opposite in every way. Where they were gaunt and pale skinned, the stranger had bronzed flesh and a perfect physiqu

e. The connection between father and son immediately formed and was plain to see, although Mortarion knew nothing of the link. The stranger challenged the youngprimarch to capture the last mansion alone, but if he failed he would join thestranger in total obedience. Mortarion turned away and began the ascent to the final mansion, that of the man he had called father, alone. He marched to the topwith the anger given by years of building hatred for the final warlord. He climbed higher than he had ever gone before, ignoring the increasing toxins[1][6b].

When the confrontation came, it was mercifully short. Even the hoses of his suitbegan to corrode and rot down and Mortarion was gasping for breath. The last thing he saw was the overlord walking towards him to fulfill the promise he had made years before. Then, the stranger stepped between them and, defying the fog, killed the warlord with one mighty sweep of his sword[1][6b].

Post Unification

When Mortarion had recovered he bent his knee to the stranger and pledged his service. Only then did the stranger reveal himself to be the Emperor of Mankind and Mortarion's father. He then was given command of the fourteenth legion of theSpace Marines, the Dusk Raiders. It was said that Mortarion brought his relentlessness to the Death Guard legion and they followed his ideals. He only ever found friendship in two other Primarchs, Night Haunter and Horus. So close did Mortarion and Horus become that the ever watchful Roboute Guilliman of the Ultramarines and Corax of the Raven Guard approached the Emperor with concerns as to where

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Mortarion's loyalties lay. The Emperor waved it aside with a hand gesture; loyalty to Horus was loyalty to the Emperor[1][6b].The HeresyMortarion, Daemon Prince of Chaos

Horus found Mortarion more difficult to bring to his cause than either Angron orFulgrim, and for it time it seemed the Warmaster may have failed to convince the Lord of the Death Guard. However Horus at last found a chink in Mortarion's armor, he was beginning to see the Emperor as having been corrupted with power andnow was just another tyrant drunk with power. Horus eventually used this doubtto bring Mortarion to his cause.[6a]

Prior to the Horus Heresy, Mortarion led his legion into battle against a Xenosrace known as the Jorgall[2].

With the entire Death Guard fleet, Mortarion set off to Terra to join the siege.Unfortunately the fleet was caught in an impenetrable warp storm, the navigators not being able to find a way through the warp or a way back into real space. The fleet was reduced to drifting, and in that time the Destroyer came. The plague that came could not be resisted, something that terrified Mortarion and the Death Guard. It transformed them into bloated mutants, yet none could die, their own body being their undoing. None suffered more than Mortarion, for it was likebeing on the mountain top again, surrendering to the toxins, but this time without the Emperor to save him. Eventually, Mortarion could suffer no more and gave

himself to Chaos. Father Nurgle responded and took the legion and Mortarion as his own[7].

What emerged from the warp bore little resemblance to what had gone in. The Marines' once gleaming armour was corroded and shattered, barely containing their bloated, pustule covered bodies. Their weapons and armour were powered by the energies of Chaos and they became known as the Plague Marines, although they would still use the name Death Guard[7].

After Horus was defeated, Mortarion led his forces, in an ordered formation, back to the Eye of Terror. Mortarion claimed the Plague Planet as his new world andit is ideal for launching attacks on the real world. He shaped it so well thatNurgle promoted him to Daemon Prince. Mortarion got what he wanted, a world of h

is own. He ruled over a toxic death world of poison, horror and misery. He had come home[Needs Citation].Post-Heresy

In 437.M36, Mortarion emerged at the head of a Death Guard and Nurgle-Daemon army that led to the Fall of Sanctia.[5]

In 901.M41, during the Battle of Kornovin, Mortarion killed Geronitan, Supreme Grand Master of the Grey Knights. Geronitan's subordinate, Kaldor Draigo, assaulted the Daemon Primarch and carved his forebear's name into the Daemon's heart, an insult Mortarion has never forgotten[4].