Warhammer 40k Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Warhammer 40k Wiki

Prospero was the original homeworld of the Thousand Sons Traitor Legion of Chaos Space Marines and their Primarch Magnus the Red.

It was a centre of knowledge and lore, particularly knowledge of sorcery and the Warp before its surface and its planetary capital of Tizca were scoured by the planetary assault of the Space Wolves Space Marine Legion just before the start of the Horus Heresy in 004.M31.

This assault, remembered as the Battle of Prospero or the "Burning of Prospero," was abetted by Magnus' own arrogance and hubris, and arranged by the connivance of the Warmaster Horus, who sought to turn the Astartes Legions against one another and to drive the Thousand Sons into the arms of Chaos so that they would support his own attempt to overthrow the Emperor of Mankind.

After the Space Wolves' assault, Prospero was declared a Dead World by the Imperium, like all of the former homeworlds of the Traitor Legions.

In the Era Indomitus, Prospero is once more ruled by Magnus the Red and the Thousand Sons, whose new Tzeentch-given homeworld of Sortiarius, the Planet of the Sorcerers, materialised above Prospero from the Immaterium following the casting of a great ritual by the Daemon Primarch during the Siege of the Fenris System in 999.M41.

Prospero is being reconstructed by the Thousand Sons as part of Magnus' dream of a "New Kingdom" where Human psykers and sorcerers can gather to master their abilities without facing the prejudice and brutal repression of the Imperium.

Prospero is slowly transforming into a weapons-manufacturing world to supply the Thousand Sons and their psyker allies' coming war against the Imperium and the Corpse Emperor who cost them their great dream ten thousand years ago.

History

Chosen by its settlers for the planet's isolated position although it still remained far closer to Terra than many other human colonies settled during the Dark Age of Technology, the Civilised World of Prospero had only a few redeeming qualities. It possessed no independent resources, little contact with any outsiders and only a few sources of nourishment. The only reason for planting a colony there was because it was a very good place to hide, and thus became a large community of psychically talented and often physically mutated humans who could find no refuge elsewhere in the galaxy.

During the Great Crusade, Prospero had developed into a paradise world. Many of the vast buildings on the planet were massive gold and marble pyramids. Prospero was a planet with blue skies and gleaming Egyptianesque architecture. One of the world's many cities was the capital city of Tizca, often referred to as the City of Light, where the Thousand Sons later held out against the Space Wolves when they were mistakenly declared traitors against the Imperium.

Prospero's "cleansing" at the hands of the Space Wolves was hastened by the dilapidated state of the planetary defenses. As the homeworld of a Space Marine Legion, it was standard for the surface of such a planet to be protected by immense planetary Defence Lasers sunk into reinforced silos many miles beneath its settlements. Orbital fire platforms, automated tracking stations, minefields, as well as a number of the Legion's own starships -- all were manned continuously and diligently.

Inferno-spread3

An ancient Cartographica Imperialis topographical map depicting Prospero's planetary capital Tizca, the City of Light

Even if no overt attempts were made to reinforce the garrison of Prospero, save for the recalling of much of the XV Legion to its homeworld, it remained a mighty fortress. The majority of that then-verdant globe was covered in broken hills and dense forests, its ancient cities little but time-scoured ruins with only heavily fortified Legion outposts, small migratory settlements and the largely subterranean enclave belonging to the Zhao-Arkhad Forge World of the Mechanicum to be found outside of the capital city of Tizca.

Yet this was no weakness in the world's defences, for the wilderness that was Prospero, though lush in appearance, was known to be infested with a sickening variety of xeno-fauna, the most infamous being the deadly pseudo-insectile Psychneuein parasites, beings whose life-cycle extended into the fabric of the Empyrean, making them all but impossible to bar or exterminate. The hidden predatory swarms of these strange creatures would have made any attempt to achieve landfall in the wilds impractical, even for such a host as that gathered by Leman Russ and Constantin Valdor, leaving them no secure foundation from which to make a more conventional siege of Tizca from without.

ThousandSonsProspero

Magnus the Red leads his Thousand Sons on Prospero.

In addition to to the harsh terrain and deadly fauna of Prospero, Tizca itself, the renowned "City of Light," presented yet another formidable obstacle to any attacker, geographically bounded as it was on all sides. To the north rose the sheer peaks of the White Mountains, studded with enclosed Defence Laser emplacements and fortified bunkers manned by the soldiers of the Prosperine Guard, and to the west lay the Valperine Sea, whose deep turquoise waters served to ward off conventional landings by sea.

The focus of the Thousand Sons had always been set on other goals besides the traditional Space Marine role of combat, particularly the acquisition of knowledge concerning sorcery and psychic abilities. This distraction had led to a dangerous weakening of the Prosperine defence grid. The cavernous subterranean Defence Lasers had been neglected, left unmanned and poorly maintained, while the orbital defences were virtually non-existent. As a result, the arrival of the Imperial Censure Host armada during the Battle of Prospero went uncontested, their orbit-to-surface ordnance barrages unanswered and their Drop Pods unchallenged.

Tizca Battle

Tizca falls under siege by the forces of the Imperial Censure Host during the Battle of Prospero.

Ironically, whilst the attack was underway, the Thousand Sons' focus remained on their lore -- rushing to save what incalculably precious works of sorcery and psychic research they could whilst the righteous, if possibly misplaced retribution of Leman Russ' Space Wolves Legion went unchallenged. Indeed, had a proper defence of Prospero been attempted, more time might have been bought to evacuate the libraries and studies of the Thousand Sons' ultimately costly work.

Russ and his Censure Host attacked the planet with extreme viciousness and devastating results, slaughtering all he could find. In the end, after a grueling duel between the two primarchs, Magnus cast spells that took all of the great city, his marines, and his precious libraries to a new homeworld in the Eye of Terror, the Planet of the Sorcerers.

Later in the Horus Heresy, the White Scars Legion under the command of the Primarch Jaghatai Khan arrived to investigate what had transpired. They found no survivors from either side and the vengeful ghosts of slain Thousand Sons wandering the ruins of Tizca.

The Khan was confronted by one of the psychic shards of Magnus the Red created when he had been defeated by Leman Russ. The two discussed both of their successes and failures and may have been tempting his brother to join the forces of Chaos. After refusing Magnus' entreaties, Jaghatai also refused the offer to join the Traitors extended by the newly arrived Mortarion, who had arrived in orbit of Prospero with his Death Guard fleet.

The two primarchs battled on Prospero's ruined surface as their fleets clashed in space. After a brief but intense battle between the Legiones Astartes warships, the Death Guard disengaged.

41st Millennium

Prospero remained thereafter a blasted ruin, picked clean by millennia of looters and Rogue Traders following the Horus Heresy because of its connection to the Thousand Sons and its people's heretical sorcerous heritage.

Some ten thousand standard years later at the end of the 41st Millennium, Prospero has become a hotbed of Warp activity ever since the Planet of the Sorcerers had materialized close to it following the rituals enacted by Magnus the Red during the Siege of the Fenris System in 999.M41.

Upon the soil of Prospero the Space Wolves and Thousand Sons again came to blows at Njal Stormcaller attempted to rescue a force of the Space Wolves' 13th Great Company from Magnus the Red.

In the Era Indomitus, the ruined world is part of Magnus' "New Kingdom" in realspace, dedicated to providing a haven for Human psykers and sorcerers free from the brutal prejudice and repression of the Imperium as their numbers surge in the wake of the Psychic Awakening.

The Daemon Primarch has ordered the rebuilding of his devastated homeworld. However he does not want Prospero rebuilt to its former glory, which was lost in the fires of the Horus Heresy, but instead as an anvil, designed to hammer out the tools of war against the Imperium he so hates.

Temple-Arcologies of Tizca

Tizca City of Light

An ancient aerial view of the temple-arcologies of Tizca, the City of Light, planetary capital of Prospero.

Towering above the minor pyramids and other lesser structures of Tizca were the eight temple-arcologies. Five of these immense structures housed the vast training facilities, libraries and barracks of the largest of the psyker-cults of Prospero, as well as the living quarters of the throngs of lesser adepts, servants and extensive defensive fortifications and weapon emplacements.

One of the true wonders of the City of Light, each temple-arcology was a city unto itself, as well as a private fortress where each of the great Cults of the Thousand Sons had perfected their individual doctrines and rituals far from the prying eyes of outsiders. Almost ten per cent of the total population of Tizca lived within the precincts of one of these temple-arcologies, and in case of a city-wide catastrophe, they could provide shelter for a far larger share of the civilian population.

Within their cavernous halls were stored enough supplies and munitions to sustain the XV Legion and its dependents for several standard years, and the layered districts within their armoured cores would prove all but impossible to take by storm. Any attacker targetting Prospero would need to neutralise these structures quickly or face the prospect of a lengthy and costly siege.

Prospero - Athenaeum of Prospero

The Great Library of Prospero.

The ninth of these structures stood at the centre of the city, within the sculpted boundaries of Occullum Square. Unlike the other eight, there were no civilians or companies of the Thousand Sons in residence here. A complex of ancillary buildings and lesser pyramids sprawled across the square at its feet, which housed the collected wisdom of Prospero and the Thousand Sons.

These structures comprised the Great Library, the most hallowed treasure of Prospero, and the ninth temple-arcology was the Pyramid of Photep, the sanctum of Magnus the Red himself.

Few other than the most trusted of the Thousand Sons' officer corps and the elite warriors of the First Fellowship ever entered those halls and witnessed the hidden labours and experiments of the Sorcerer Primarch. In the wake of the utter destruction wrought by the Space Wolves, none will ever know what secrets he uncovered within its halls.

Videos

Trivia

Prospero is the name of the main protagonist and master sorcerer in William Shakespeare's The Tempest. It is also a satellite of the gas giant Uranus in the Sol System.

Sources

  • The Horus Heresy - Book Seven: Inferno (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 33, 65
  • Thousand Sons (Novel) by Graham McNeill
  • Prospero Burns (Novel) by Dan Abnett
  • Scars (Novel) by Chris Wraight
  • Ashes of Prospero (Novel) by Gav Thorpe, Chs. 1-3
  • Mephiston: City of Light (Novel) by Darius Hinks, Prologue, Chs. 19, 24, 26


Raven Rock Videos
Warhammer 40,000 Overview Grim Dark Lore Teaser Trailer ā€¢ Part 1: Exodus ā€¢ Part 2: The Golden Age ā€¢ Part 3: Old Night ā€¢ Part 4: Rise of the Emperor ā€¢ Part 5: Unity ā€¢ Part 6: Lords of Mars ā€¢ Part 7: The Machine God ā€¢ Part 8: Imperium ā€¢ Part 9: The Fall of the Aeldari ā€¢ Part 10: Gods and Daemons ā€¢ Part 11: Great Crusade Begins ā€¢ Part 12: The Son of Strife ā€¢ Part 13: Lost and Found ā€¢ Part 14: A Thousand Sons ā€¢ Part 15: Bearer of the Word ā€¢ Part 16: The Perfect City ā€¢ Part 17: Triumph at Ullanor ā€¢ Part 18: Return to Terra ā€¢ Part 19: Council of Nikaea ā€¢ Part 20: Serpent in the Garden ā€¢ Part 21: Horus Falling ā€¢ Part 22: Traitors ā€¢ Part 23: Folly of Magnus ā€¢ Part 24: Dark Gambits ā€¢ Part 25: Heresy ā€¢ Part 26: Flight of the Eisenstein ā€¢ Part 27: Massacre ā€¢ Part 28: Requiem for a Dream ā€¢ Part 29: The Siege ā€¢ Part 30: Imperium Invictus ā€¢ Part 31: The Age of Rebirth ā€¢ Part 32: The Rise of Abaddon ā€¢ Part 33: Saints and Beasts ā€¢ Part 34: Interregnum ā€¢ Part 35: Age of Apostasy ā€¢ Part 36: The Great Devourer ā€¢ Part 37: The Time of Ending ā€¢ Part 38: The 13th Black Crusade ā€¢ Part 39: Resurrection ā€¢ Part 40: Indomitus
Advertisement