The Ashen Circle were the iconoclasts of the Word Bearers, warriors charged with the burning of temples, the toppling of idols, and the eradication of false faiths across the compliant worlds of the Great Crusade. Bearing fire-axes and jump packs, they descended like avenging angels to scour heresy from the galaxy.
In the Legion's early days, the Ashen Circle enforced the Imperial Truth with zealous fury, casting down the gods of a thousand worlds so that no faith might rival the Emperor. Their fires reduced sacred texts and graven images alike to cinders, cleansing humanity of superstition.
Yet a terrible irony consumed them. When Lorgar turned his Legion toward the worship of the Ruinous Powers, the very warriors who had burned the old gods became the heralds of new and darker ones. The Ashen Circle marched into the Heresy as apostles of the faith they had once been sworn to destroy.