Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work (Warhammer 40,000)

Product Information

He began to combine more psyches within his own cybernetic intelligence core using the soul-merging technology. Over the centuries, the archmagos was slowly transformed into a gestalt being who is now best described as a mesh of souls rather than a combination of minds. As the millennia passed, Cawl also began to lose much of his memory as he was forced to dump data from his intelligence core's limited storage capacity approximately every 500 standard years. The Emperor explained to the future Cawl in the memory that it would be his responsibility to continue His work, and must continue to do so even on the day that Cawl came to believe that he had betrayed all that the Emperor stood for. The very idea of betraying the Emperor horrified the young Cawl.

Written by Guy Haley, Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work does a deep dive into a beloved character from the franchise. Known as the Archmagos Dominus of the Adeptus Mechanicus, he is arguably one of the most brilliant people you'll ever meet. Cawl himself is over ten thousand years old, predating even the Imperium itself, though how exactly he has sustained his life for so long is unknown. Cawl has been memory wiped at least twice, leaving his own origins a mystery even to himself. [6] It is thought that he has used forbidden alien methods technology with mechanical bionics to sustain his life at the cost of any humanity he may have had left. [5] Heresy-era We begin with Our mechboy has come to Sotha to further the sacred quest for knowledge, and as always he is bisy at work… Learn more: The Horus Heresy book The Master of Mankind focuses on what the Emperor was up to during the Horus Heresy.Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work is an intense and intricate read. It is every bit as grand and complicated as I would have expected or hoped, given who we're talking about here. It's one of those novels that you can really sink your teeth into. Cawl's knowledge of genetics gained from his soul-merger with Sedayne, along with the potent genetic material contained within the device known as the Sangprimus Portum, allowed Cawl to successfully complete the creation of the Primaris Space Marines and implement the Ultima Founding in ca. 999.M41, using candidates kept in stasis deep beneath Mars from the time of the Heresy until the 41st Millennium. This was the culmination of ten millennia of work intended to perfect the Emperor's creation.

After the end of the Horus Heresy, Cawl was charged by Roboute Guilliman, then the first lord commander of the Imperium and the new Imperial Regent, to oversee two responsibilities should the primarch fall, one of which was the construction of the life-sustaining suit of Artificer Armour known as the Armour of Fate. The other was the preservation of the Emperor's Sword, the blade given to Guilliman by the Master of Mankind Himself and which contained a fragment of His divine power. This may just be the best non-Dan Abnett Warhammer 40k novel I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot of them. It features the titular Belisarius Cawl, as well as Tetrarch Felix, the remaining non-Primaris Scythes of the Emperor, Cawl’s bodyguard Alpha Primus, and more. Belisarius Cawl is also legitimately funny, which is not something I generally expect from a 40k book. I will note that readers will benefit from reading the Horus Heresy novel “Pharos”, also by Guy Haley, before this one, as much of the action occurs in the same location, just 10,000 years later. It is mostly set on the planet Sotha, post-Tyranid invasion. Belisarius Cawl, charged with finding a way to close the Great Rift by Roboute Guilliman, sent his own agents -- armies of Mars and House Taranis -- across the stars in an effort to combat the growing danger, and hundreds of battles were fought as more and more Forge Worlds were drawn into the conflict to aid their beleaguered brethren. as he shows his capeabilities, methods, roasts eldritch abomination twice, opens not one but two portals, and furthers the Sacred Quest for Knowledge more than anyone else since the Emperor himself, and at least to me prooving why the Dark Mechanicum & Kelbor-Hal are Losers. So you either fly out of that hole and eat that delicious star I’ve found for you, or you can stay here and die with me.’Since reloading a portion of his stored memories, the ancient Tech-priest has become forgetful, prone to spending recuperative solar decades within his own stasis crypts. Yet such prolonged periods offline inspire Cawl to once more take to the field in his hunt for knowledge. His words were cryptic, mentioning secret pacts forged on the Red Planet and long works at last drawing to their conclusion. Satisfied, Cawl took his leave of the primarch and returned to his forge on Mars to oversee these projects to completion. Enemy Scan: The Eye of Xi-Lexum, a techno-relic of Forge World Agripinaa, is an advanced servo-skull created from the remains of a highly talented Tech-Priest. The machine spirit of the Eye is able to analyse enemy vehicles during a battle, identifying their weaknesses with the same withering gaze that the Tech-Priest was renowned for in life. The 8th Edition rules for the Eye represent this by giving a re-roll to wound against nearby enemy vehicles.

While under potent assault by the forces of Chaos within the primarch's final resting place, Cawl worked with Yvraine, the Daughter of Shades and priestess of Ynnead, the Aeldari God of the Dead, to restore the Primarch's life force while Cawl's technology healed his grievous wound. For ten standard millennia, the archmagos dominus had been working on another task set for him by the primarch Roboute Guilliman before he was mortally wounded by the Daemon Primarch Fulgrim at the Battle of Thessala in the days after the Horus Heresy: a new legion of transhuman warriors. Adventurer Archaeologist: While most Tech-Priests will search for knowledge in the ruins of the past if they have the opportunity, the independently minded Tech-Priests known as Explorators make it their life's work. They explore the dark fringes of the galaxy, searching for the lost knowledge of the Dark Age of Technology, archeotech and valuable STC data. Due to the dangers inherent in the regions that they operate, Explorators must be more than ready to defend themselves and will often travel in the company of an entire Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator Fleet or as part of the retinue of a Rogue Trader. Who else but the great Belisarius Cawl could even accomplish such a task? Now, in the wake of the Great Rift and the Indomitus Crusade, his ambitions bring him to the long-dead world of Sotha, once home to the Scythes of the Emperor, now a barren wasteland devoured by the vile Tyranids. Accompanied by Tetrarch Felix and his elite warriors, it is here that Cawl believes the lynchpin of his mysterious Great Work lies. But uncovering it is a near impossible task, one in which the Archmagos must overcome an ancient evil that threatens to extinguish the last hope of humanity. Cawl's first confirmed appearance in Imperial history came during the Horus Heresy, where he was a Tech-acolyte on the Mechanicum world of Trisolian-A4 in the Trisolian System. He was trained under the Magos Domina Hester Aspertia Sigma-Sigma, herself a master of the art of "soul-merging," essentially the digital duplication of another being's mind and psyche and the ability to merge it with another using cybernetic implants. His greatest friend and companion at this time was his fellow Tech-priest Friedisch Adum Ship Qvo.Companion Cube: The Adeptus Mechanicus believe that all machines, from the most basic powered tools to the most complex vehicles and mechanisms, are possessed of a life force which makes their mechanisms function, which they call a machine spirit. Machine spirits are said to have moods, with malfunctions and misfires often blamed on a temperamental or vindictive spirit which needs to be mollified with the proper rituals and sacrifices. While some of the more advanced Imperial machines do have cognitive systems and logic engines that are also known as machine spirits, these systems fall short of true artificial intelligence due to the ban on such programs, with the most advanced (such as those of a Titan) often slaved to a human controller. The primarch knew that Cawl's thirst for advancement could eventually become a problem for the Imperium, and at that time, he would have to deal harshly with his old ally. Warhammer 40,000 fans rejoice - Belisarius Cawl has his own novel! Join him on his journey to the abandoned world of Sotha which hides a long-buried secret… and an ancient evil.

About time!’ Cawl said. ‘Primus, aid me!’ he wailed, wheeling his arms. The distant sun pulled at him. … Yet Guilliman believed that it was probable that the Cawl Inferior was a real machine intelligence masquerading as a non-intelligent device as a pretence. Guilliman was no technologist of the ability demonstrated by his brother primarchs Perturabo, Vulkan or Ferrus Manus, but he doubted that the archmagos was telling him the complete truth about how his creation truly worked, especially since it obviously also made use of power drawn from the Warp, which was one reason why Master Astropath Guidus Losenti preferred to never be in the machine's presence once he had activated it with the code Cawl had astrotelepathically transmitted to him.

The expedition came under assault by Genestealer Cultists who had infiltrated the Chapter serfs of the Scythes of the Emperor. Ultimately all of that Chapter's remaining Firstborn Marines were slain alongside their Chapter Master Thracius in combat with the Genestealer Patriarch whose cult had first called Hive Fleet Kraken to destroy Sotha during the Second Tyrannic War. Construction Is Awesome: A central belief of the Cult Mechanicus. Every finished item that rolls off their assembly lines is a prayer made manifest; every factory is a temple; every building, no matter how big or how small, is a monument to the Machine God.