Eugen Temba

Eugen Temba was the Imperial Commander of Davin during the Horus Heresy, corrupted into a herald of Nurgle in the Whisperhead Mountains.

As planetary governor, Temba administered Davin on behalf of the Imperium during the early Horus Heresy, a world garrisoned by elements of the Sons of Horus and allied forces of the Warmaster’s fleet. Accounts hold that Temba succumbed to a Chaotic influence emanating from the Whisperhead Mountains, his body and mind transformed into a bloated, plague-ridden champion of Nurgle. Leading a warband of similarly corrupted followers, he was besieged by Horus’s forces before the Warmaster confronted him directly; Temba was slain in this encounter, though Horus himself sustained a wound during the fighting that later accounts identify as the origin of his subsequent physical and spiritual decline.

Temba’s fall and death are significant chiefly for their consequences rather than for his own standing, which was that of a minor planetary administrator prior to his corruption. The wound Horus received in destroying him is recorded as a contributing factor in the Warmaster’s deteriorating health and susceptibility to the manipulations that led to his eventual allegiance with the Ruinous Powers. Temba himself left no lasting legacy beyond this role as an early and localized instance of Chaos corruption within Imperial territory during the opening phase of the Heresy.