The Black Parade

I figured I would start my blog with a little history lesson on the Word Bearers. All though long, I will not go in-depth with the history just touch the surface a bit to give you a little insight and understanding of the Chapter. I will assume that you have a little back history of the 40k universe and its workings.

Overview:
The Word Bearers are the 17th Chapter founded by the Emperor. Their armor is painted a dark crimson with gunmetal trim. The Legion symbol is a horned daemon skull occasionally with a burst of flames behind or below it. They are one of the nine Space Marine Legions which betrayed the Emperor during the Horus Heresy, becoming Chaos Space Marines, their allegiance pledged to their Primarch Lorgar and to Chaos as a whole. Also noted to have been the first legion to be corrupted by chaos and brought about the Horus Heresy in its entirety.

Primarch:
The Primarch of the Word Bearers, Lorgar, vanished while still an infant, just like all of the other Primarchs. He was discovered on a Feudal World named Colchis, which he had eventually unified in a series of brutal religious wars in response to his visions of the Emperor's coming arrival. When the Emperor did arrive, as Lorgar had foreseen, the Primarch dropped to his knee, leading the population of his world in rejoicing and worship of the Emperor as a god. At the conclusion of these festivities, the Emperor bade Lorgar take his best warriors and induct them into his Space Marine Legion and join him on the Great Crusade. Lorgar appointed trustworthy regents to rule over Colchis and devoutly complied with his father's direction.

Lorgar was an unusually pious Primarch. While other Legions were rapidly conquering planet after planet, the Word Bearers proceeded much more slowly, as they would build temples and shrines in veneration of the Emperor, who was also deemed the God of the Imperium by Lorgar, on each newly conquered planet. All forms of blasphemy and heresy that threatened the Emperor's realm, all manner of ancient scrolls, books, artworks and icons were burned and smashed before the advancing ranks of the Legion. In their place, vast monuments and cathedrals, all dedicated to the Emperor, were erected upon the mounds of dead of those who had resisted conversion. The greatest Chaplains of the Legion produced enormous works on the divinity and righteousness of the Emperor, and Lorgar himself delivered countless speeches and sermons, converting millions to the Emperor with his words alone.

However, the Emperor became impatient with the Word Bearers, and ordered them to cease this activity, as their mission was to reunify the galaxy under the Imperial banner, not preach of the Emperor's personal divinity. Lorgar is said to have been stunned by this reproach, and to have fallen into a melancholic state. Feeling betrayed, he refused audience to all but Kor Phaeron, his lieutenant and ally since Colchis. Kor Phaeron sympathized with Lorgar, and felt that the Word Bearers should serve Gods truly worthy of worship. What's more, he knew of such gods. And thus, Lorgar discovered the Chaos Gods, who not only accepted zealous worship, but in fact demanded it. Thus the seeds of heresy were sown, and when Horus turned against the Emperor in the name of Chaos, the Word Bearers quickly joined the rebellion, and the worlds they had conquered since their conversion also joined, having been secretly corrupted by the Word Bearers.

The Horus Heresy:
When the Word Bearers launched their attack against the Ultramarines, the strike against Calth was led by Lorgar's greatest champion, the former Master of the Faith, Kor Phaeron. He swore to utterly destroy the planet, and was very nearly successful. From his personal battle barge, now renamed Infidus Imperator, Kor Phaeron directed a full-scale invasion of the Calth System. Calth's three sister planets were all destroyed, massive geo-nuclear strikes ripping them apart at the core. Its once gentle sun was laced with deadly metals and substances that increased the star's radiation output tenfold; within a century after the Heresy's end, the final elements of Calth's atmosphere were burned off and the world left airless, its populace forced to live in gigantic underground caverns.

Lorgar himself lead the rest of his Legion against Terra, where he helped smash down the realm of the master he had once served with the fanaticism of a zealot. In the end, Horus was defeated, and the legions of Chaos were forced to flee. The Word Bearers were also forced to retreat to the Eye of Terror, and there they have remained, returning to the Imperium to raid, pillage, and destroy.

Organizations:
Word Bearers do not worship Chaos Gods individually. Instead, they are venerated and regarded as a Dark Pantheon of Chaos Gods. Word Bearers rely on Daemons as shock troops, meatshields, and as the bulk of their armies. Their elite Chaos Space Marines are used to accomplish vital tasks. The Word Bearers have been known to have a massive cultist base, and have used cultists and insurgents since the Great Crusade. However, unlike the Alpha Legion, they use cultists as cannon fodder and distractions, not as spies, infiltrators, saboteurs, or political tools.

The Word Bearers are notable for being the only Traitor Legion who still have a corps of Chaplains, now known as Dark Apostles. The Word Bearers follow the words of their Dark Apostles with total faith in battle. The Dark Apostles divine through many ways how a battle is to be fought and won, and the warriors of the Host obey unquestioningly. Before battle, the Word Bearers gather in ritual prayer, chanting hymns and cult doctrine to affirm their faith in the power of Chaos. Often these chants will be answered and it is common for the Word Bearers to fight alongside daemonic entities.

The largest known Host numbered over two thousand Chaos Marines at its peak. The size of this force required that the Dark Apostle be served by two chief lieutenants, his First Acolyte and a champion, entitled as the Coryphaus. Additionally, the Host possessed an Icon Bearer and an elite unit of over two hundred Terminators known as the Anointed.

Post-Heresy:
From the Demon World of Sicarus, Lorgar watches over his Legion and orchestrates the vast corruption from within that the Imperium suffers at the hands of his cults and covens. Unlike many of the other Traitor Legions, the Word Bearers have remained a unified, if loosely organized, military force.

From the two primary bases of the Legion, Sicarus and the factory-world of Ghalmek, located within the Maelstrom, the Word Bearers launch twisted wars of faith against the Imperium. On each world they attack, they incubate a seed of heresy that will one day contribute to their ever-expanding web of cults. Sometimes however, this brings them into competition with the efforts of the Alpha Legion. Though the Alpha Legion and the Word Bearers have united several times to take part in the Black Crusades of Abaddon, they are more usually in states of bitter division and rivalry. However, these things are but distractions as their war against the Imperium of Man is total, and they do not intend for it to end until every icon of the Emperor lies shattered at their feet.

References: Lexicanum