Lion El’Jonson

Lion El’Jonson is the primarch of the Dark Angels, the I Legion of Space Marines, also called the Lion, the First, and, after his return in the Era Indomitus, the Knight of Nihilus. Cast as an infant onto the death world of Caliban, he survived a decade alone in its forests before knights of the Order found him; Luther named him Lion El’Jonson, “the Lion, the Son of the Forest,” and raised him. Together they led a crusade that cleared Caliban of its Great Beasts, after which the Lion became Supreme Grand Master of the Order and compelled the other knightly houses to yield, destroying the corrupted Knights of Lupus who refused.

When the Emperor of Mankind’s I Legion scouts reached Caliban, the Lion swore fealty, took command of the Legion, and renamed it the Dark Angels. He rebuilt it on Calibanite and Hexagrammaton lines, tested his captains in person, and fought through the Great Crusade. On Dulan he slew the Tyrant Durath ahead of Leman Russ and fought Russ in a feud that endured between their Legions. At Zaramund a quarrel with Luther over the conduct of the campaign ended with Luther and many Caliban-native legionaries sent back to the homeworld. Learning of Horus’s rebellion while still engaged against the Gordian League, the Lion struck at the forge world Diamat to deny siege engines to the Warmaster, then unwittingly traded those engines to Perturabo, who was already secretly pledged to Horus.

In the Thramas Crusade he hunted Konrad Curze across the Eastern Fringe, duelled him on Tsagualsa, secured the warp engine Tuchulcha at Perditus, and afterward held Curze captive aboard the Invincible Reason. Unable to reach Terra through the Ruinstorm, he joined Guilliman and Sanguinius in Imperium Secundus on Macragge as Lord Protector, pursued Curze across Ultramar, and later helped breach the Ruinstorm. In the Passage of the Angels he burned Traitor holdings in the southern Imperium, including the legion homeworlds Chemos and Barbarus and Angron’s adoptive world Nuceria, before arriving at Terra with Russ after Guilliman’s relief, too late for the Siege’s climax. He sat on the Grand Council of Reconstruction, pressed with Dorn and Russ for immediate pursuit, and returned to Caliban to find Luther’s garrison in revolt. In the duel that followed, Luther mortally wounded him; a warp storm shattered the planet, and the Lion was borne into slumber within the Rock.

Awakened in M42 in the forest-realm called Mirror-Caliban, he walked out onto Camarth, gathered loyalist Fallen as the Risen, and raised the Lion’s Protectorate from Avalus. At the Battle of Idolatros he descended to Wyrmwood, banished the daemon primarch Angron, and was acclaimed Knight of Nihilus.