Belisarius Cawl, Arch-heretek, Hellwright of the Plague Planet

In late 973.M41, the Ordo Hereticus began to ask quiet, sensitive questions about the conduct of a high ranking Martian Archmagos named Belisarius Cawl. The task of leading this investigation fell to an Inquisitor named Erasmus Horn. Horn was know for his subtlety, patience and most of all for operating away from the hierarchy of the Ordos. This was important for the Inquisition, because the investigation required plausible deniability. Horn knew and accepted that should he be discovered at the wrong time, his masters would disavow him.

The reason for this secrecy was that Cawl ranked among the most senior and revered Archmagi of the Adeptus Mechanicus, second only to the Fabricator General himself. Should the case against him fall through, a monstrous diplomatic incident might well be the result. But the rumours were too alarming to leave unexamined.  There were mutterings, whispered gossip that the Archmagos was heretically tampering with the Emperor's divine work, that he had indulged in the use of warp technology in a lunatic quest to improve on that which is holy and right.

Working with sympathetic magi inside the Martian hierarchy, Horn was able to determine that Cawl had for some time been making requisitions which, though individually innocuous for a senior Archmagos, painted an alarming picture when put together. Cawl had been obtaining suspicious amounts of Astartes geneseed, vastly more than was warranted for purity checks. Cawl had been careful to source through a number of different channels. He was clearly trying to avoid attention. On top of this, he seemed to have over several years acquired an alarming amount of cloning and genetic manipulation facilities. It was agreed between Inquisition and Mechanicus that this evidence warranted a raid on Cawl's Martian holdings.

A significant taskforce of Skitarii and Inquisitorial Stormtroopers assaults Cawl's forges, and after a brief ferocious battle was successful in neutralising Cawl's forces. It was quickly apparent that this was because Cawl himself and a portion of his forces were not present: either the Archmagos had been away on business or had got wind of the investigation. However, whilst Cawl himself had slipped through their fingers, what Inquisitor Horn and his Mechanicus colleagues discovered was enough to damn the Archmagos a hundred times over.

Whatever doubts there had been about Belisarius Cawl, they were all confirmed in that monstrous exploration of his laboratories. That Cawl was wholly insane there could no longer be any doubt. In his blasphemy, he had declared himself greater than the Omnissiah, claiming that he could better the work of the Emperor. The appalled investigators found hellish attempts to create a bigger, more pliable form of Astartes. In his arrogance, the vanished Cawl had labelled the abominations Primaris, a word which contextually has overtones of supremacy which mp proud Space Marine chapter would have ever recognised. Thankfully, Cawl's experiments had been largely unsuccessful: such warp-twisted abominations that were found in the laboratories were few and far between. Horn put them to the flame without exception. 

Further exploration of Cawl's holdings showed more heresies. An unfinished device was discovered the purported reason for which was to expand the Eye of Terror into a morbid scar across the galaxy. Every senior Archmagos consulted by Horn dismissed the device as a madman's fevered experiments. Yet the hellish purpose behind them was in itself enough to condemn any servant of the Omnissiah. Cawl apparently planned to use this fiendish warp-scar as a power source. His journals detailed insane plans to justify his actions by claiming that they came straight from Roboute Guilliman. Indeed, it was clear that he intended to create a cloned puppet of the thirteenth primarch to be his mouthpiece. All of Cawl's work was put to the sword and the purifying flame. He was expelled from the Adeptus Mechanicus and declared Excommunicate Traitoris in a unanimous vote by the Senatorum Imperialis itself. Cawl, however, had disappeared. 

It would be many years before Belisarius Cawl came forth again to blight the Imperium. Realising that he was discovered, the Archmagos had fled from Mars. Initially, his plan had been to travel to a secret facility he maintained in the Ghoul Stars. However, on his way, his ship was ambushed by a fleet belonging to the Synod of Suffering. The Archmagos was dragged before Lord Eiterfex, who offered Cawl a choice between service and death. To Eiterfex's amazement, Cawl agreed immediately. His bitterness and despair at the failure of his schemes had driven him further into the spiral of madness, and the degraded glory of Nurgle now appealed to him immensely.

Granted laboratories on the Plague Planet, Cawl set to work with deranged abandon. If the Emperor refused his genius and rejected his superior Astartes, then Mortarion and Eiterfex would reap the reward. In deep caverns that rang to screams and scrapcode, Belisarius Cawl found his true vocation. Great adominations of flesh, metal and Neverborn energy staggered from his putrid furnaces. 

By 015.M42, Cawl was ready. And at Lord Eiterfex's side, he marched out to take his revenge on the galaxy.