Iron-Captain Gdolkin

Iron-Captain Anatolus Gdolkin is an Iron Hands officer who destroyed a Titan legion preserved in the Warp rather than let Abaddon capture it. He entered the Chapter as an aspirant at sixteen and later served as an Iron Father before holding the rank of Iron-Captain.

Gdolkin crossed Medusa at sixteen armed with a family bolt pistol and reached the Chapter missing a hand, a circumstance the Iron Hands regarded as a promising beginning. After two centuries of service he was an Iron Father who held servitors in higher regard than failed aspirants. He preferred to serve at Cadia rather than undertake further errands for the Adeptus Mechanicus, but his oaths took him instead to Fornax Orbis Majoris and Herod. The destruction of artefacts there woke the Warp storm Araken. Within it, the Crucible’s Tomb of the Ironclad proved to contain not Ferrus Manus in stasis but a Titan legion preserved in the Warp. Gdolkin killed the Chaos champion present and destroyed the engines rather than allow Abaddon to obtain them.

Gdolkin describes the flesh as a design flaw and regards the Gauntlet of Menestus as its correction. His destruction of the Titan legion at Araken denied Abaddon its use.