Kharn The Betrayer

Kharn The Betrayer's History

Khârn the Betrayer is a member of the World Eaters Traitor Legion of Chaos Space Marines, and the greatest mortal Champion of Khorne. He currently leads his own World Eaters warband called the Butcherhorde.

Second only to the World Eaters Daemon Primarch Angron in aggression and bloodlust, Khârn has lived a life of murder and betrayal, the blood spilt and skulls collected for his patron beyond counting.

In battle Khârn is always where the fighting is at its thickest, wielding his heavy chainaxe Gorechild (which, along with its twin Gorefather, was wielded by Angron during the Horus Heresy). Rimmed with the unbreakable teeth of a Mica Dragon, this fell weapon continually rises and falls as it severs heads and claims skulls. He is the avatar of Khorne, embodying the Blood God's indiscriminate rage and bloodlust in the realm of mortals.

Like his World Eaters comrades, he emerged from the gruesome psycho-surgery experiments of Angron, having underwent ritual lobotomisation with the implantation of the Butcher's Nails cranial implants, with all sense of fear and danger removed so that the rush he experienced in combat was greatly enhanced. His love of murder was so great that Khârn actually had an ancient death-counter installed in his helmet which registers the number of kills he has made in the helm's eye lenses.

Khârn has dedicated his millennia-long existence to unleashing bloody carnage upon anyone and anything within reach. He is drawn by the scent of war as a hungering hound is drawn by fresh meat, and it has become impossible to tally his slaying. Even during the Great Crusade, when he fought in the vanguard of the World Eaters Legion's assault companies, Khârn was known to be a brilliant warrior.

When the Horus Heresy came, Khârn gladly led his warriors against his brother Space Marines, and his number of kills reached shocking new levels as he followed his master Angron along the road to the attack on Terra itself. During the Siege of Terra, Khârn was at the forefront of the assault.

When Horus was defeated, Khârn already lay horribly mangled upon a mound of corpses. His fellow World Eaters carried away his lifeless remains and fought their way back to their dropships. Once aboard, they discovered that Khârn still lived. Whether Khorne had breathed life back into his Berzerker Champion or Khârn's own relentless spirit simply refused to leave, it is impossible to say, but he benefits from the supernatural protection of his murderous deity to this day.

Since the end of the Horus Heresy, Khârn has been an unstoppable and bloody avatar of Khorne. Khârn is called the Betrayer because of an incident on the Daemon World of Skalathrax. Fighting against the Emperor's Children, the World Eaters needed just one more victory over Fulgrim's warriors before the planet could be claimed in Khorne's name. The battle had to be won before Skalathrax's long, frozen night drew in and killed victor and vanquished alike.

Yet the World Eaters could gain no ground against their foes and were hurled back time after time by the devastating Sonic Weapons of the Noise Marines. Khârn cursed his fellow warriors for failing in the attack and, seizing a Flamer, he torched the nearest buildings in a gesture of contempt. He cut down those who tried to stop him and marched into the gloom, consuming the city in flames as he went and slaughtering all that he found, friend or foe.

Anarchy engulfed the World Eaters as they fell upon each other, and the Legion was irrevocably split into hundreds of individual warbands. Since that bloody day, Khârn has been Khorne's most ardent warrior, hunting the Eye of Terror as the head of a World Eaters warband, slaughtering any worthy enough to be killed in Khorne's name.

Ten millennia later, during the 13th Black Crusade in ca. 999.M41, Khârn's wrath was unleashed upon the Imperium of Man once more, as Khârn joined a few of the most insane of the Khornate Berserkers in battling those legions of the Emperor's warriors flocking to the defence of Cadia.