Mephiston

Mephiston, titled Lord of Death, is Chief Librarian of the Blood Angels, formerly the Librarian Calistarius, who held the rank of Lexicanium. He is one of two Blood Angels recorded as having overcome the Black Rage, an affliction of the Chapter bound to the death of the primarch Sanguinius; the other is Lemartes. Born about the 41st millennium as Calistarius, with Baal recorded as his home world, he was active from the 41st millennium into the present, first as a firstborn Space Marine and later, after crossing the Rubicon Primaris, as a Primaris Space Marine.

In 589.M41, as Lexicanium Calistarius, he was present as an honorary member of the 1st Company, commanded by Captain Michaelus Raphael, at the boarding of the space hulk Sin of Damnation. During the Second War for Armageddon, dated 941–943.M41, he was in the relief force for Hades Hive on the hive world Armageddon, fell to the Black Rage, was inducted into the Death Company, and was trapped for seven days when an Ecclesiarchy building collapsed; he mastered the Rage and broke free on the seventh night, and was thereafter called Mephiston. Weaponless, he killed a band of Orks in the ruins and walked to the Imperial lines. He did not command that war. In 977.M41 the daemon M’kar trapped him in the crystal caves of Solon V, urged him to turn renegade, and claimed he was already on the path to daemonhood; Mephiston refused and throttled M’kar. In 992.M41 he led Strike Force Sanguinatus on the hive world Hollonan against a genestealer cult and then Hive Fleet Kraken, killing a Carnifex and the Hive Tyrant and being badly wounded by a Trygon, before the invasion was defeated after reinforcements arrived.

In the 900s.M41, during the Arkio Insurrection, he sent Epistolary Vode and Captain Gallio to judge the honour guard Arkio; both were killed. He then went in person to the memorial world Sabien aboard the battle barge Europae, and did not fight on the forge world Shenlong; after Arkio’s death on Sabien he ordered the Exterminatus of Shenlong. On Sabien the Lord of Change Malfallax drove the Blood Angels present, including Mephiston, into the Black Rage; Sergeant Rafen broke that hold on Mephiston with the Spear of Telesto, and Mephiston then stilled the others. Shortly before the Devastation of Baal, dated by one account to about 999.M41 and by another to the early 42nd millennium, he went with the Librarians Gaius Rhacelus and Lucius Antros to the Cruor Mountains on Baal to open a portal and kill the bloodthirster Ka’Bandha; the ritual failed, and a cave-in trapped them for the rest of the battle, though one battle listing names him among the commanders. He afterwards fought Slaaneshi daemons aboard the battleship Dominance, no world recorded, and was overwhelmed by his own powers; held in the Chemic Spheres inside the Arx Angelicum on Baal, he underwent the Rubicon Primaris proposed by Rhacelus, nearly died during the procedure, and survived as a Primaris Marine after Commander Dante refused Astorath’s wish that he be executed. In the early 42nd millennium, during the Angel’s Halo, he fought on Kheru, in the account describing it as an arid sentinel world, shielding a Reiver insertion and, with Lieutenant Perdaelus, drawing Tyranids away from the sensoria-city Sensorem Primus; he is not recorded at Ashallon, Gamma IV, Bhelik Alphus, or Acrabellar.