Taymon Verticorda

Taymon Verticorda was among the most ancient and venerated Nobles ever to lead House Taranis, a warrior whose life spanned the very founding of the Imperium. Long before the Horus Heresy, when the Emperor of Mankind first descended upon Mars to treat with its Mechanicum masters, it was Verticorda who met Him, and it was Verticorda who witnessed the Master of Mankind lay a single hand upon his wounded Knight and restore the war-suit whole with a touch. In that moment the ancient warrior became the first of all Mars to proclaim the Emperor the Omnissiah made flesh, bending his knee more than two centuries before the galaxy would burn, and lending his voice to the compact between Terra and Mars that would become the very backbone of the fledgling Imperium.

In the long years that followed, Verticorda and his fellow Lord Commander were honoured with the office of Princeps Conciliatus, mediators and masters of ceremony among the proud and fractious warrior orders of the Red Planet. It fell to them to ensure that the great gatherings of Mars were conducted with the dignity owed to the most ancient of martial traditions, that old customs were preserved, and that even bitter rivals might speak with one another in honour rather than in bloodshed. By the eve of the Heresy, Verticorda was widely regarded as a voice of hard-won wisdom amid the treacherous currents of Martian politics.

That wisdom could not stay the catastrophe of the Schism of Mars. When the rebellion rose and the forge world tore itself apart, Verticorda held loyal, and House Taranis committed itself utterly to the defence of the loyalist cause. The end came at the Magma City, the forge-hold of Magos Koriel Zeth, where the last Knights of Taranis found themselves surrounded, without hope of victory or of escape. Rather than fall passively, the survivors resolved upon a final, suicidal charge against the traitor Ambassador Melgator, who commanded the enemy host. At the head of that death-ride went Verticorda and his fellow Lord Commander Caturix, and though the two ancient Nobles were cut down by Melgator's forces, they carried their charge home and slew the arch-traitor before they fell. In their sacrifice the honour of the First House was preserved even in its darkest hour, and the name of Taymon Verticorda, first to kneel before the Omnissiah and unbowed to the very last, endured long after the fires of Mars had cooled.