+ inload: Word Bearers Possessed +

+ Mekholta Dmalachi, Twiceborn of the Blasted Cedar +

+ Odd what you miss, isn't it? I could have sworn I'd written an inload about this fellow in the dim and distant past, but my mem-banks have seemingly suffered a cascade-fail. Never mind; it's an opportunity to revisit an old model, now that he's been updated. +

+ Possession +

+ Insofar as any warp-related phenomenon is explicable, possession usually implies the dominion – forcible or otherwise – of an alien's life-force (i.e. soul, ba, psyche – call it what you will) over another's physical corpus. Extra-material species such as the Krell use such methods to procreate and spread, their common names of Enslavers or Dominators making their methods clear. +

+ The possessing entity circumvents the host's life-force, either destroying it completely or displacing it to the status of impotent witness. Such are the majority of the known cases of possession of Imperial citizens: an aggressive warp-predator 'taking over' the body of a peon; usually a psyker of some minor talent. +

+ Once in control, the warp-predator or daemon will usually twist and adapt the physical structure to better suit its alien whims, causing rampant physical deformation considerably beyond more regulated mutation. +

+ Possession is usually an involuntary process, but cultists are known to invite warp-entities to possess bodies – usually unwilling victims, but occasionally the cultists themselves. +

+ Voluntary possession +

+ Where possession is voluntary, the inhabitant's life-force may be able to continue to enforce itself upon its body, living alongside the invited entity. If the inhabitant is strong-willed enough, they will gain access to the daemon's strengths – hyperphysicality, extra-sensory perception and so forth – an tempting offer for a typical low-status cultist. +

+ Such co-habitation is usually short-lived, as daemons are rarely willing to co-operate where they can control. Unless the inhabitant is strong-willed and attentive enough to resist the daemon permanently, he or she will almost inevitably be tricked, forced or convinced to drop their guard – at which point the daemon will assume full control. +

+++

+ Astartes and possession +

+ Steeped in the warp, the Traitor Legiones Astartes are known to field shock troops made up of possessed warriors. Some are simply shells of Astartes, while others are hybridised, retaining both their original Astartes strengths and the insights and skills of the possessing daemon; some able to switch back and forth – in essence giving one or other 'soul' temporary control to better serve battlefield conditions as felt appropriate. +

+ Inquisitors of the Ordo Malleus believe this practise dates back to the Horus Heresy, under the auspices of the treacherous Lorgar, Primarch of the Word Bearers. The Chapter of the Serrated Sun was possessed en masse, and they and their possessed successors were fielded in a number of crucial campaigns including the Isstvan Dropsite Massacre, the betrayal at Calth, and the Siege of Terra. Seeing the effectiveness of the 'Gal Vorbak', other Legions soon sought counsel with daemons, leading to other, similar, formations such as the Lupercii of the Sons of Horus, and the Woesmiths of the Iron Warriors. +

+ The Word Bearers treated possession as a form of ascendancy, seeing bodyshare with a warp-entity as a natural next step in their post-human progression, akin to the surgeries that had transformed them from human to Astartes. Their belief was that possession was a necessary consequence for humankind to survive and prosper. +

+ For these reasons, Word Bearer possessed forces refer to themselves as the 'Twiceborn'; believing possession to be a form of second birth into a new life. +

+ Betrayal at Calth +

+ The deep blood-crimson of the Word Bearer's armour came as a shock to XIII Legion forces during the Battle for Calth, though nowhere near as shocking as the presence of the twisted forms of the Word Bearers' elite Twiceborn. +

+ The daemon-ridden Twiceborn were at the Vanguard of the Blasted Cedar's assaults on Trenchant Ridge. It proved impossible to meaningfully quantify the Twiceborn's effacity, as their combat effectiveness seemed to vary substantially from engagement to engagement. +

+ The distinctive sigils of Colchisian script dotted their armour, but much more alarming was the corona of nameless colours that danced around their bodies, crackling and arcing onto the ice and snow of the region. +