Logan Grimnar

Logan Grimnar, known also as the Great Wolf of the Space Wolves, High King of Fenris, the Old Wolf, and the Fangfather, was born on the world of Fenris of the Iron Blood tribe at some point around the year 300.M41.

In 313.M41 the crew with which he served was fighting the Sea Devil and Ice Fang tribes at a ruined temple of Morkai on the Boiling Ocean when they were ambushed; when the fighting ended he alone remained standing, an outcome witnessed by the Wolf Priest Ulrik. Terminators of the Space Wolves subsequently brought him to the Fang. There, during the Trial of Morkai, he killed the ice troll Frostblood, driving a broken bone into its eye.

He served first as a Blood Claw and later as a member of the Wolf Guard within the Night Runners, the Great Company led by Asvald Stormwrack.

In the 390s.M41 Grimnar accompanied Ulrik, serving alongside Lord Solar Macharius, in the search for the relic known as the Fist of Russ. The chronology of the crusade gives no precise year for this episode, and places the search first on the world of Demetrius and subsequently on Procrastes; the earlier account names both Ulrik Grimfang and Logan Grimnar, while the narrative set on Procrastes names only Ulrik and makes no mention of Grimnar. The fighting is said to have continued into the webway, where Macharius killed the Dark Eldar lord Ashterioth; Grimnar does not appear in that part of the record.

In 399.M41, on the industrial world of Loki in the Segmentum Pacificus, Grimnar and the Inquisitor Hyronimus Drake led the assault on the citadel of the traitor general Richter. One version of events holds that the two of them killed Richter directly; another states that he was killed by Imperial forces after Macharius diverted an orbital strike onto the citadel.

Asvald Stormwrack was killed fighting Orks at the Cyclopean Rift in 415.M41, after which the Wolf Guard elected Grimnar to succeed him as Wolf Lord; the account of Asvald’s death does not state that Grimnar himself took part in that battle.

Grimnar became Great Wolf of the Space Wolves in 440.M41, following the death of Sigvald Grimhammer at the hands of a Dark Eldar succubus; a differing account names Anakron Silvermane, rather than Sigvald Grimhammer, as his predecessor in the office. One record states that by the close of the forty-first millennium Grimnar had held the office of Great Wolf for more than seven hundred years, though 440.M41 falls just under five hundred and sixty years before the millennium’s end. A novel set during the Macharian Crusade depicts him as a young warrior in the years 392 to 399.M41. These three statements are not easily reconciled with one another.

Grimnar led the Space Wolves during the First War for Armageddon, fought on that world; the year of this campaign is recorded variously as 444.M41, 474.M41, 499.M41, and about 641.M41. In the course of the fighting he killed the Chaos Lord Akor Doomflayer and took from him the axe later known as Morkai. The primarch Angron was banished during the same war by the Grey Knights.

During the period known as the Months of Shame, Grimnar attempted to escort troop ships away from Armageddon, and killed the Grey Knights Grand Master Joros aboard the vessel Fire of Dawn after a parley between the two forces broke down. The open battle that followed was fought in orbit above Fenris itself, where Grimnar killed the Inquisitor Lord Ghesmei Kysnaros aboard the ship Corel’s Hope; the fighting ended only when Bjorn the Fell-Handed intervened to require Grimnar to stop.

In 612.M41 Grimnar fought the War of the Wolf on Lumerius, engaging a force of the Black Legion first aboard the vessel Well of Souls and then within an ice-locked wreck. The account of this campaign places the Chaos scientist Fabius Bile within the vault there, following earlier reports that had placed him elsewhere in the same system; Bile teleported away before he could be taken. The casket of a Wolf Brother marked by the Wulfen curse was returned unopened to the Fang at the campaign’s end.

Grimnar fought the Battle of Midgardia in 933.M41 against the necron lord Trazyn the Infinite, who sought a shard of the C’tan Nyadra’zatha. Grimnar began the campaign on Fenris, continued the fight aboard the ship Void Wolf, and concluded it on Midgardia itself; Trazyn departed the engagement in possession of the shard.

In 998.M41, a date also recorded as 443998.M41, Grimnar’s company arrived in the Sanctus Reach to support Alaric Prime against the Red Waaagh! led by the Ork warlord Grukk Face-Rippa.

In the closing days of the forty-first millennium, eleven of the Chapter’s twelve Great Companies took part in the Hunt for the Wulfen, searching for those of their number afflicted by the Wulfen curse; those found were brought before Grimnar on Fenris. During the same period he fought daemons, among them a Bloodthirster, on the shrine world of Vikurus, fighting alongside Sisters of Battle and Grey Knights under Arvann Stern, who warned him that the Thousand Sons were moving against Fenris; no segmentum is recorded for Vikurus. Grimnar subsequently fought in the Siege of the Fenris System, dated to about 999.M41.

A fuller account of these events states that Grimnar, together with Egil Iron Wolf, first reclaimed Midgardia, fighting the daemon princes Mordokh, Arkh’gar, and Malyg’nyl within its caverns, before being taken aboard the battle barge Allfather’s Honour ahead of the Exterminatus visited upon Midgardia. By this account he then fought on the plains of Asaheim, at the place called the Wolf’s Gullet, where, after Egil Iron Wolf was killed charging with the Spear of Russ, Grimnar wounded the primarch Magnus the Red with the axe Morkai; Magnus was afterwards banished by the Grey Knights. A separate, shorter summary of the same period, titled “Wrath of Magnus”, states instead that Grimnar was committed elsewhere at the time. Both accounts are recorded.

During the Thirteenth Black Crusade, Grimnar served as supreme commander of the defending Imperial forces. He and Azrael fought together at Kasr Sonnen, a fortress world that is the third planet of the Cadian system, rather than a city upon Cadia itself. One account of the crusade states that the Chapters of Grimnar and Azrael engaged the Chaos commander Typhus at Macharia, Korolis, and Kasr Sonnen; Grimnar is not recorded as having stood upon Cadia itself, nor as having fought in person at Macharia or Korolis.

In the Season of Blood, a conflict placed in M42 without a more precise year, Grimnar fought on Armageddon against the primarch Angron, together with the Champions of Fenris. During this period he and the High Marshal Helbrecht quarrelled over the conduct of purges. One account states that the two of them fought together in the final assault on the Red Angel’s Gate; another states instead that they held a withdrawing line while the Grey Knights Grand Master Rothwyr Morvans struck at the gate. Both accounts are recorded.

Following the opening of the Great Rift, Grimnar fought Orks aboard an unnamed space hulk, after which he met Roboute Guilliman at a muster held at the Fang. He regarded the newly created Primaris Space Marines, and Guilliman himself, with distrust, and expected to die in battle against the Ork warlord Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka. After hearing of Kjarg Iron-Oath’s experiences, Grimnar accepted the Primaris as sons of Fenris, after which the Chapter joined the Indomitus Crusade; no world is recorded for its subsequent service.

Grimnar’s wargear includes the Armour of Asvald Stormwrack, a storm bolter, the axe Morkai, the chariot Stormrider, and the Thunderwolves Tyrnak and Fenrir.

In 499.M41 Grimnar took command of the quarrelling Imperial Guard regiments committed against the Palacia Heresy, ended the systematic execution of the planet’s population, and rallied the loyalist cities under the banner of his Great Company; his victory, and the fair treatment he gave Palacia’s people, were widely reported.

During the Scouring of Gnosis, the Aeldari invasion of the Gnosis System in the Talhor Sector, Grimnar answered the distress call of the hive world Gnosis Prime, but a warp anomaly delayed his fleet and the world had been all but destroyed when he arrived more than a year later. He turned instead to Gnosis Secundus, where he defeated the Saim-Hann host of the Autarch Eliac Zephyrblade and forced it to withdraw. The campaign is dated variously to 786.M41, 787.M41 and 838.M41.

In 960.M41 his Great Company captured the feral Dreadnought later called Murderfang on the hell world of Omnicide and carried it to the Fang. In 988.M41, riding the chariot Stormrider, he led the charge that broke the Necron phalanxes of Imotekh the Stormlord on Vhaloth IV, a victory he is said to have thought hollow, because the hunt that brought him there had been meant to find Trazyn the Infinite.

On Armageddon in the Season of Blood, the Space Wolves landed near Hive Volcanus, where Grimnar took command of the remaining Imperial forces; leading his Wolf Guard as Thunderwolf Cavalry, he banished the Bloodthirster Zhul’korr with the axe Morkai, and he and Helbrecht later drew Angron’s host into prepared killing grounds before the Diabolus Forge Complex, where the Grey Knights banished the daemon primarch.

After the Siege of the Fenris System, Grimnar and most of the surviving Space Wolves made for the Cadian Gate to join the defence against the Thirteenth Black Crusade. He is also listed among the Imperial commanders of the Third War for Armageddon in 998.M41, though another account states that he sent five Great Companies there while his own presence was needed elsewhere.