Slaanesh: Farente Jobimus - Blood Angels

“Look upon the sin you carry in your veins, brother”

Farente Jobimus, Host of Thorns

One of the better known traits among the hosts of Baal is the pursuit of arts and crafts other than war. In this the Blood Angels are perhaps unparaleled, their sculptures, paintings, musical pieces and other works incredibly appreciated among the whole of the Imperium, even if, in their humility, they prefer not to showcase them as would perhaps befit their quality.

For Sanguinary Guard Jobimus, it was gardening that took his interest. His sanctum, Eliseeum, was once open to any and all Blood Angels who wished for some solace and time to meditate. Indeed, Jobimus was often praised for his non-martial service to the Chapter, for it was commonly accepted among the higher echelons of the Sanguinary Host that the walks through Eliseeum played an important part in keeping an Astartes' mind pure and devoid of turmoil. Occupying a fairly large space on top of one of the Fortress' towers, Eliseeum was populated with specimens from Imperial words and even a few taken from the Blood Angels' campaigns - after properly analysed by the Chapter's Magos Biologis.

So it was until, in M37, the conclusion of the Takeno-Sara liberation saw the hero Jobimus come into contact with a plant unlike any other he'd seen. Dark, mahogany-like wood and crimson leaves made it look incomparably beautiful. Forgoing the usual analysis by the Magos for fear that they'd forbid its incorporation in Eliseeum simply due to some poison (a minor problem for an enhanced Astartes), Farente Jobimus soon made Cranadia, as he called it, the centerpiece for his garden. His descent began at that moment.

Upon returning from the Massacre of Mackan, Jobimus sought comfort in his work. Yet this was not so...Instead of its usual black and crimson majesty, Cranadia was an ashen ruin, its leaves rotting on the soil below and a web of thorny weed of the same mahogany hue as Cranadia's wood having destroyed the nearest specimens. This only amplified Jobimus' already deep pain, and he threw himself furiously to both improving his already great martial prowess but also to recovering Eliseeum. However, it wasn't until Farente'next battle, a resounding victory for the Chapter against the Greenskins, that he achieved the latter goal. He returned to Eliseeum in glory after having single-handedly wiped the Warboss' bodyguard force, some five huge Nobz that had killed one of Jobimus' oldest friends, Therias the Ever-Soaring, himself a legend of the Sanguinary Guard. This time Cranadia was all Farente remembered and more. The killer weed was nowhere to be seen and the tree had a full crimson crown of leaves – all but a single one, which lay on the floor. Jobimus found the coincidence strange, for a second, but was too satisfied to pay it due attention.

Within a few years and dozens of battles, the pattern was undeniable. Cranadia’s health and vigour mirrored the Blood Angels’ performance in battle, while the weed in particular depended on Jobimus’ accomplishments. During this time, he’d closed Eliseeum to all but the highest-ranked Blood Angels. These, though, did not share the Sanguinary Guard’s enthusiasm, the nature of the tree’s behaviour not as clearly a gift from the Emperor as Farente believed. His behaviour, more than anything, fuelled this suspicion: Jobimus, once a benevolent soul and self-sacrificing Astartes, now took to the battlefield as a callous, individualistic combatant, always seeking his own glory and berating both battle-brothers and even Chaplains and Captains for perceived mistakes. Though this was within the rights of a Sanguinary Guard to do, the change in character was abysmal. After a hard-fought retreat from a Dark Eldar raid that saw the Imperial Hive of Kresaurus pillaged and most of its population thrown into the xenos’ cargo holds, Jobimus delivered a tremendous beating to Captain Namharan of the 6^th Company while berating him in front of the whole Chapter. This forced Lord Dante’s hand: Jobimus, though his long-time friend, had to be confronted with such behaviour.

 It fell to Chaplain Conorrian – himself a good comrade of Farente – to face the Blood Angel hero and uncover the cause for such behaviour. He found the gold-plated champion tending to a desiccated Cranadia, a blackish, thorny weed running rampant through Eliseeum. Rather than pruning or watering the tree, never mind ridding the poor tree of its parasitic host, Jobimus seemed to simply be praying. Another strange behaviour for a fiercely secular man.

 The conversation went downhill after only a few words exchanged, Jobimus desperately on the defensive and acting as a cornered animal, a reddish tinge to his eyes that made Conorrian ready to reach for his crozius at any time. When a confrontation looked inevitable, and as the old Chaplain prepared to take Farente to the Chapter’s justice, he noticed not only that Cranadia had grown a full crimson crown in the space of their argument, but also that a single leaf now fell slowly to the ground. Conorrian followed its descend, only to notice, as his eyes reached down, that the weed had crept around his ankles. The moment he tried to yank out of it was the moment Jobimus chose to bury his great axe into the Chaplain’s chest. He was still alive as the black weed engulfed him, its thorns cracking his skin with agonizing pain. As Conorrian’s world turned black, he saw a tear in reality open before the damned tree.

 In the years that followed, only a mind broken by a demented pursue of perfection prevented Jobimus from becoming a true nemesis to the Blood Angels. Even so, he is a blighted upon the Chapter, a deep scar that systematically opens at an even deeper level that even Ka’Bandha can aim for. Over time, Jobimu’s armour has taken on the colour and texture of the palest and smoothest flesh, disturbingly organic without completely losing the sacred machinery components or any of its defensive properties. More disturbingly, Cranadia now sprouts from the disgraced Angel’s back, its leaves now a kill-count for the Blood Angels felled by Jobimus. At times, they will fall in droves, leaving Jobimus in a berserker state more appropriate to a follower of Khorne than a practitioner of Slaanesh’s misguided search for excellence.

More than his martial prowess, his size – now more akin to that of a Primarch – or the chaotic strength Jobimus’ patron has granted him, it’s his Death Mask that truly cuts the flesh of the Blood Angels’ collective. The mask has taken an even greater resemblance to Sanguinius, and he has reserved the cruellest of punishments to the officers of the Chapter. So it is that many a Captain, Apothecary and even Sanguinary Guard (some of which Jobimus’ former comrades) fell to the most agonizing death a Blood Angel can expect: after felling them in a fight, Jobimus will remove his cowl and present to his once-brother the cruel smile of his Primarch and Father. The result is horrendous, the afflicted entering the throes of the Black Rage, with a sadistic twist. Instead of witnessing Sanguinius’ final moments as they took place, the Blood Angel will see a corrupted version, one in which the angelic Primarch throws down his sword and recognizes Horus’s superiority, failing to provide the Emperor with chink through which he might more easily defeat the fallen son. Pledging himself to Horus, Sanguinius’ allegiance is then denied by the archtraitor, who beheads the Angel out of contempt.

Needless to say, such a vision completely shatters a Blood Angel’s mind, and witnesses have had a hard time conveying the sheer horror of listening to an Astartes cry in such agony as those subjected to Jobimus’ gaze do. So it is that, for the Angels of Baal, already wracked by their curse and forced into heights of discipline and loyalty to keep them it in check, Jobimus is the embodiment of their failure, the possibility that their efforts are futile, and the defilement of their father’s likeness and unblemished loyalty to the Emperor. To see Jobimus is to see the Chapter’s fall to individualism and paranoia. To fight him is to discover it is already underway, it seeds planted by those the Angels love the most.

Sire of Thorns

Jobimus’ former Glaive Encarmine has fused with the fel weed that once seemed to afflict Cranadia, its blade now an unblemished silver and its shaft now a brambled mess with thorns that perforate Jobimus’ flesh and spur him to even basest deeds. At the pommel is a distorted mask resembling Chaplain Conorrian, his mouth open in a silent scream. Said silence is broken, though, when the traitor angel holds the weapon upright and any blood on the blade drips down into the mask’s open mouth. When it tastes a fellow Astartes’ blood, especially those descended from Sanguinius, the cries will echo across even the most frantic battlefield, and even a Space Marine’s iron will is affected by the sound of one of his own’s tormented cried.

Caress of the Prince