The Word Bearers

The Word Bearers are one of the nine First Founding Space Marine Legions that betrayed the Emperor of Mankind during the Horus Heresy. They became Chaos Space Marines‚ their allegiance pledged to their Daemon Primarch Lorgar and to Chaos Undivided. The Word Bearers were also the first Space Marine Legion to be corrupted by the Ruinous Powers of Chaos many solar decades before their counterparts turned to the service of the Dark Gods. Through their actions they corrupted the Warmaster Horus Lupercal and brought on the terrible galactic civil war of the Horus Heresy in all its savagery. Today they bend all their considerable efforts towards the overthrow of the "Corpse Emperor" in the Long War and spreading the "truth" of Chaos to all Mankind. In the years before the return of Lorgar and the discovery of his homeworld of Colchis by the expanding fleets of the Imperium in 857.M30‚ the XVIIth Legion was known amongst the vast hosts of the Great Crusade by designations other than the "Word Bearers". The Emperor named them the "Imperial Heralds" at their inception‚ an elegant title that spoke of the grand purpose for which they had been created‚ whilst their fellow Astartes warriors named them the "Iconoclasts‚" a more brutal appellation coined in appreciation of the zeal with which they cast down the idolatrous temples and cultic strongholds of Old Night. After the Legion was reunited with its lost primarch‚ he renamed the XVIIth Legion the Word Bearers‚ which was in line with his belief that the Emperor of Mankind was the divine saviour of Humanity. At present‚ the Word Bearers' greatest foes amongst the servants of the Emperor are the Ultramarines and their Successor Chapters‚ who the Word Bearers have hated and seen as rivals since the time of the Great Crusade.