Ortan Cassius

Ortan Cassius is the Master of Sanctity of the Ultramarines, the senior Chaplain who governs the Chapter's Reclusiam and keeps the fire of its faith. At close to four centuries of age he is among the very oldest of the Chapter's living warriors, and the years have left their mark: his skin is weathered to cracked leather and his hair burned white, his ruined features a testament to a lifetime spent in the Emperor's wars.

Those scars were earned above all in the First Tyrannic War, when Hive Fleet Behemoth fell upon Ultramar and the Ultramarines fought their desperate defence of Macragge. In that cataclysm Cassius was struck down and horribly mauled by a rampaging Carnifex, his body all but destroyed. Only the ferocious strength of his will kept him alive long enough for the Apothecaries to save him, rebuilding his shattered frame with bionics until he could return, unbowed, to the fight.

From that trial Cassius forged a doctrine of pure and undying hatred for the Tyranids, and he has spent the long decades since instilling that loathing in his brothers. He leads the Chapter's veterans against the Great Devourer wherever it appears, and his mastery of oratory is such that his sermons alone are said to have carried the Ultramarines through campaigns across hundreds of worlds. Under his direction the Chapter's Sternguard Veterans have become peerless specialists in the extermination of the Great Devourer, and his mere presence at the front is enough to steel wavering companies to unbreaking resolve. Many of the Chapter's finest, Cato Sicarius among them, count Cassius as both a mentor and a scourge.

More relic than man now, sustained by faith and iron, Cassius endures as the living conscience of the Ultramarines. Where he walks, the weak-willed rediscover their courage and the alien finds only a wrath that four hundred years of war have failed to quench.