| rdfs:comment | - A daemon has no real date of birth, for its essence comes from the Warp, yet Ghargatuloth was once young and in his youth he showed considerable interest in the material realm, and in particular in the species known as man. Like many of the Greater Daemons of the Ruinous Powers, he craved the new experiences and sensations of the Materium, crossing the veil whenever he found a mind of sufficient psychic power to harbour him. Escaping the Warp, he revelled in the feeling of having a physical body, from the weight of his own muscle and bone to the dullness of possessing only five senses. The material world offered him countless new sensations and experiences. Ghargatuloth used his physical body to interact with mankind, for he had emerged in the troubled time known as the Age of Strife. His
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| abstract | - A daemon has no real date of birth, for its essence comes from the Warp, yet Ghargatuloth was once young and in his youth he showed considerable interest in the material realm, and in particular in the species known as man. Like many of the Greater Daemons of the Ruinous Powers, he craved the new experiences and sensations of the Materium, crossing the veil whenever he found a mind of sufficient psychic power to harbour him. Escaping the Warp, he revelled in the feeling of having a physical body, from the weight of his own muscle and bone to the dullness of possessing only five senses. The material world offered him countless new sensations and experiences. Ghargatuloth used his physical body to interact with mankind, for he had emerged in the troubled time known as the Age of Strife. His words or stories were perceived as the insane gibbering of the mentally-ill amongst the petty, narrow-minded human beings he encountered. The aura of power surrounding him was such that everybody who laid eyes upon him instantly knew that he was not human. Yet in the tumultuous time of war and bloodshed that was the Age of Strife even a madmen like Ghargatuloth could become a king. It is the firm belief of the Inquisition that Ghargatuloth spent almost the entirety of the Age of Strife under various human identities. He was the brutal warlord who condemned whole worlds to burn just to satisfy his ego, and the hero whose name was venerated by millions. He was both the woman who would bathe every morning in seas of the lifeblood of her exsanguinated foes and the pirate-king who united a dozen star-systems only to let them fight each other and see which would prevail. Ghargatuloth watched as entire empires in the void rose and fell, as cities were erected and torn down. As a species, Mankind ultimately lost the ability to travel the stars, fracturing into a thousand different worlds, stellar empires and kingdoms, all at war with each other. In countless disguises and under many different names, Ghargatuloth gathered knowledge and grew ever more powerful. He became the Prince of a Thousand Faces. Many times he knew defeat and even pain when his host's physical body was killed. The Age of Strife lasted longer than many humans could comprehend, longer even than history could properly record. Every life Ghargatuloth lived fed his lust for the pursuit of knowledge that was the true mark of every servant of Tzeentch, but after centuries of bloodshed, the truth dawned upon Ghargatuloth: he was a mere child, and the Age of Strife was his playground. For every victory he achieved, he had also known defeat. For each empire that rose to power, another fell into anarchy. Ultimately, Mankind had one inherent flaw: it was weak. However powerful, Mankind could not endure, for the slow passage of time would see it fail time and time again, for the only eternal power-- that of the gods -- rested within the Warp. Only the Chaos Gods were truly eternal and Mankind could not hope to emulate them. When Ghargatuloth realised this fundamental truth, he began to despise the species he had toyed with for so long. He still occasionally ventured into the material realm to cause wanton panic and havoc, but it was an action devoid of sense, only meant to distract him from his state of boredom. There was no knowledge to be found there, no secrets to learn, for Mankind was but a crude and ignorant animal that could never gain true, meaningful power. Until one man changed all this. On distant Terra, the cradle of Mankind, a visionary warlord had risen to power and seized control of the homeworld, a stranger calling himself the Emperor. The Emperor had something others of His ilk lacked: He had a vision, a vision called the Great Crusade. Whether He knew it or not, whether He wanted it or refused the very notion of it, the Emperor had declared every human being an automatic citizen of the newly founded Imperium of Mankind. Through violence and peaceful negotiations, the Emperor strove to reunite the scattered species and establish Mankind as the dominant race of the galaxy, a people that could rival the might of the Eldar of old. Such raw ambition piqued Ghargatuloth's interest, but the Prince of a Thousand Face refrained from interfering. For centuries, the Great Crusade conquered Mankind's scattered domains, unifying them into the Imperium. For the first time in its history, Mankind secured lasting power. The Imperium even survived the great wars of the Horus Heresy, when the Emperor's favourite general, Horus, the Warmaster, guided by blessed Chaos, turned his back on his father's plans and declared war upon Him. The Imperium even survived the loss of its founder and ruler, pushing back the forces that threatened it time and time again, vanquishing its many foes, surviving both civil wars and alien invasions. And suddenly the galaxy became interesting again. Ghargatuloth had found a new purpose: to ensure that the mighty Imperium, as all empires before it, would fall.
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