Event · M42

Assault on Sortiarius

The Assault on Sortiarius was an Imperial attack on the daemon world Sortiarius, the Planet of the Sorcerers, during the Psychic Awakening of the Age of the Dark Imperium in M42. Grey Knights prognosticars, using the Speculum Infernus, determined that Daemon Primarch Magnus the Red was gathering great warp power on Sortiarius for a ritual whose precise end they could not yet read. In truth Magnus sought to raise a psychic beacon that would draw psykers across the galaxy to Sortiarius to replenish his Legion, some as daemonhosts and others as sacrifices to Tzeentch, and to send out a wave of energy that would accelerate psychic development across an entire sector as a first step toward elevating humanity as a psychic race. Only Brother-Captain Arvann Stern’s 3rd Brotherhood could be spared from the Grey Knights’ stretched forces. They called on the Dark Angels, who sent Master Lazarus’s reinforced 5th Company. The two strike forces met in the Prospero System and, finding the ritual site shielded by power from a nearby temple-complex, divided their attack: the Grey Knights struck at the ritual while the Dark Angels assaulted the temple. Thousand Sons illusions stalled the Grey Knights until a warp portal delivered the lost Supreme Grand Master Kaldor Draigo, whose power dispelled the glamours. When daemonic deceit falsely told the Dark Angels that the ritual had already ended, Stern restored contact through Librarian Baraqiel; Librarians of both forces then died creating a temporary warp tunnel so that Lazarus’s company could reinforce the Grey Knights at the ritual site. Outnumbered and unable to reach Magnus in time, Stern ordered his warriors to form a psychic beacon so that the Grey Knights strike cruiser Purging Sword could fire on their position. The bombardment destroyed the ritual site and ended Magnus’s working, at heavy cost to the Imperial strike forces. Stern, Draigo, Lazarus and the survivors escaped the Prospero System under fire, leaving many Grey Knights and Dark Angels behind on Sortiarius; Castellan Champion Garran Crowe was later sent to attempt their recovery.

See where Assault on Sortiarius occurred on the galactic map in the 41st Millennium.

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