AHZEK AHRIMAN
This art was for the Cover the artist, Fares Maese did for Ahriman Exile by John French.
AHZEK AHRIMAN: A THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE
Ahriman—known fully as Ahzek Ahriman—is one of the most iconic and infamous characters in the grimdark universe of Warhammer 40,000. Originally the Chief Librarian of the Thousand Sons Legion, he served under their Primarch, Magnus the Red, during the days of the Great Crusade when the Legion was still loyal to the Emperor of Mankind.
A gifted psyker of astonishing power, Ahriman possessed a keen intellect and an insatiable thirst for knowledge, traits that would eventually lead him down a dark and fateful path.
THE RUBRIC OF AHRIMAN
Following the Horus Heresy and the Thousand Sons’ turn to Chaos, Ahriman sought a way to spare his Legion from the debilitating flesh-change curse that ravaged their bodies. In an audacious act now remembered as the Rubric of Ahriman, he performed a colossal sorcerous ritual meant to stabilize the genetic instability of his brothers.
While the ritual did indeed halt the flesh-change, it came at a catastrophic cost: every Thousand Sons Marine who was not a psyker had their bodies reduced to dust, their souls trapped within their now-empty suits of power armor.
These silent warriors, known as Rubricae, became little more than mindless automatons entirely beholden to the will of the Legion’s sorcerers.
A TRAGIC EXILE
The Rubric’s unintended consequences drew the wrath of Magnus the Red, who exiled Ahriman from the Planet of the Sorcerers. In the millennia since, Ahriman has traveled the galaxy in search of forbidden knowledge and a means to further his own twisted goals.
Steeped in the lore of Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways, he manipulates warp energies and arcane powers with unrivaled skill.
Both feared and hated, Ahriman stands as a tragic figure: once a proud defender of humanity’s Imperium, he is now a renegade sorcerer whose quest for salvation turned him into a harbinger of Chaos.
