Event · M30–M31
Destruction of Monarchia
Monarchia was the capital of Khur, razed by the Ultramarines on the Emperor’s order for the Word Bearers’ veneration of him as a god. Raised during the Great Crusade under the direction of Lorgar, primarch of the Word Bearers, the city was conceived as a monument to the Emperor of Mankind, its avenues and temples adorned with statuary and inscriptions proclaiming him divine. For the Word Bearers, who had abandoned conquest in favour of proselytism, Monarchia stood as the foremost shrine of a faith that regarded the Emperor not as a secular ruler but as a god incarnate. The Emperor, learning of this cult, travelled to Khur in person and rebuked Lorgar for a heresy that ran counter to the Imperial Truth upon which the Crusade was founded. He thereafter charged Roboute Guilliman and the Ultramarines Legion with making an example of the city. The Ultramarines duly encircled Monarchia and destroyed it, levelling its temples and scattering or slaying its populace while Lorgar was compelled to witness the ruin of his life’s labour. The humiliation inflicted upon Lorgar at Monarchia proved a turning point for him and for his Legion. Withdrawing from the Crusade in disgrace, he undertook a period of introspection and pilgrimage beyond the Imperium’s borders in the company of his closest confidants, during which he sought a power that would not disown his devotion. That search is held to have set the Word Bearers upon the path towards the Ruinous Powers and towards their subsequent part in the Horus Heresy.
See where Destruction of Monarchia occurred on the galactic map during the Horus Heresy.