Event · M41

Second Aurelian Crusade

The Second Aurelian Crusade was fought in Subsector Aurelia about a year after the First, when the ice world Aurelia, long lost to a warp storm, reappeared bearing Black Legion Chaos Space Marines under Eliphas the Inheritor and Araghast the Pillager. A distress beacon on Aurelia proved to be a trap involving the troops of Governor Vandis, and the Black Legion moved both to conquer the subsector and to free the Great Unclean One Ulkair, who had been bound within the planet before it vanished. Chapter Master Azariah Kyras ordered the Blood Ravens to withdraw from any contact with the Black Legion, an order enforced by Captain Apollo Diomedes. Gabriel Angelos urged the Fourth Company under Force Commander Aramus, with veterans of the First Company, to fight on, and Kyras branded him a traitor. Evidence recovered from the space hulk Judgement of Carrion and the testimony of Apothecary Galan then exposed the Chapter Master’s heresy. Angelos organised a full assault on the Black Legion stronghold on Aurelia. With Aramus he destroyed it; Eliphas was killed and Ulkair was banished before he could break free. The crusade closed with the loyalist Blood Ravens resolved to depose Kyras, opening the civil war that became the Third Aurelian Crusade.

See where Second Aurelian Crusade occurred on the galactic map in the 41st Millennium.

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