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| - In the aftermath of the slaughter of the Dropsite Massacre on Istvaan V, an event that the masters of Bodt (the World Eaters' fief/muster world) learned of after the fact, a delegation of senior World Eaters Apothecaries, aided and advised by peers from the Emperor's Children and Word Bearers Legions, arrived there unannounced. They quickly assumed command of the induction facilities and instigated a series of revisions to the XIIth Legion's recruitment practices. It was long established that the XIIth Legion's implantation protocols sat at the extreme end of the spectrum of tolerance and there had been many calls from Terra and from other Legions to rein in these practices, but in the aftermath of the Dropsite Massacre and with the arrival of the new overlord cadre, all restraints were re
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| abstract
| - In the aftermath of the slaughter of the Dropsite Massacre on Istvaan V, an event that the masters of Bodt (the World Eaters' fief/muster world) learned of after the fact, a delegation of senior World Eaters Apothecaries, aided and advised by peers from the Emperor's Children and Word Bearers Legions, arrived there unannounced. They quickly assumed command of the induction facilities and instigated a series of revisions to the XIIth Legion's recruitment practices. It was long established that the XIIth Legion's implantation protocols sat at the extreme end of the spectrum of tolerance and there had been many calls from Terra and from other Legions to rein in these practices, but in the aftermath of the Dropsite Massacre and with the arrival of the new overlord cadre, all restraints were removed. It was said that the raw fuel for the new processes had been harvested from the blood-soaked killing fields of the Urgall Depression, ritually gathered up by the sons of Lorgar and alchemically rendered down by the fell genius of the Emperor's Children. It was to the World Eaters apothecaries that the final duty of implantation would fall, and the result was hideous indeed. Using the raw material of the waste-dwelling Numen gun-clanners, the apothecaries created a new generation of recruits. Where the process of creating a warrior of the Legiones Astartes should ordinarily been painstakingly undertaken over a period of years, this new generation was brought into being in months. The process was shockingly wasteful and while many aspirants simply perished in the bio-vats, many more underwent catastrophic biological destabilisation, necessitating the purging of the implantation chambers by fire and radiation. Those few who survived fell far short of the trans-human ideal the Emperor had intended for the Legiones Astartes. Even for the World Eaters, these were monsters made flesh, their bodies swollen by forbidden processes and their brains flooded with burning autonomic stimulators that, in conjunction with the so-called "Butcher's Nails" implants standard throughout the Legion, induced a permanent state of hyper-aggression. Furthermore, the flash-indoctrination protocols to which each aspirant was subjected invested him with the stolen memories of a hundred thousand kills, a flickering montage of other warriors' lives and deaths cycling through their consciousness in an eternal loop. From the moment each awoke from the gene-vats, he believed himself a red-handed champion and a veteran of countless wars. His only desire was to shed blood -- his enemies' or his own -- in the name of his Primarch. This was the birth of the first Khornate Berzerkers. When the World Eaters Legion swore itself to the bloody worship of the Blood God Khorne, the Berzerkers were no longer bound to Imperial battle doctrine and were given full reign to exercise their bloodthirsty skills. They have since become the ultimate close combat shock troops, entering an uncontrollable frenzy in the heat of battle. Those Chaos Space Marines who wish to fully dedicate themselves to Khorne usually join the World Eaters to undergo the complex psycho-surgery they employ. Once the procedure is complete, they are one with their angry Chaos God, feeling nothing but the desire to kill, maim and burn. After the World Eaters Legion was sundered at the Battle of Skalathrax, most Khornate Berserkers formed separate warbands, and many bastardised practices of lobotomisation spread to other Chaos Space Marine forces alongside them. Abaddon the Despoiler, in particular, has recruited a number of highly-skilled Berzerker-surgeons to his cause, and only the Black Legion is even close to the skill of the World Eaters' Apothecaries in their perfection of this barbaric practise.
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![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)