Wulfen Lore Through the Ages

  White Dwarf 156 (Rogue Trader Era)

The Blooding

When the aspirant awakes he is freezing cold. He lies naked in the snow with a knife of meteoric iron close at hand. He is feverish and distressed. His head throbs and his muscles ache. His gums bleed and his mouth burns. Near him stands the Wolf Priest that selected him, who tells the aspirant that the true test has now begun. To prove himself worthy, he must make his way back to the Fang and gain entrance. He is now at the other side of the continent, a thousand miles away from home. The Wolf Priest disappears and the candidate is truly on his own.

Although the aspirant did not know it, the feast had a purpose. The geneseed is beginning to work on his body, rushing through it and restructuring it. Muscle mass is being added, bones are beginning to fuse together, and the very structure of his brain is beginning to alter, quickening his reflexes and heightening his perceptions. Vestigial fangs are beginning to emerge. The venison provides the raw protein needed for this, and the sacred ale was laced with the necessary trace chemicals to fuel the change..

The aspirant knows none of this. He is wracked with pain as his body stretches and grows. His mind is haunted by visions and sanity fades. He becomes wolf-like, feral, maddened by agony and hunger. Now is the worst time - he is constantly hungry because his changing body needs more and more nourishment if it is to sustain its growth. Failure to provide this will be fatal as his body begins to cannibalize itself.

These first few days are the most critical. The aspirant must feed often. He has usually been left near a source of food such as an elk herd. Near mindless, he must hunt them down, eat their raw flesh and drink their blood. Some aspirants, unable to meet the challenge, perish. Some, whether due to some flaw in themselves or the geneseed, never get beyond this stage. They become mindless animals, with an animal's cunning. They continue to grow and hunger for flesh, eventually becoming Wulfen, the most feared monsters on Fenris, creatures that are hunted down by all sane men.

Chapter Organization

The Space Wolves are organized in a very different way from most other Space Marine Chapters. The Chapter dates from the First Founding and its structure owes more to the personality of Leman Russ than it does to the Codex Astartes. It also reflects the preferred fighting style and social organization of the native Fenrisians.  

There are a dozen Great Companies, all of whom owe allegiance to the Chapter's commander, the Great Wolf. Each company is led by a Wolf Lord and his circle of advisors. Each company has its own Lair within the Fang and its own allocation of starships and weapons. A Great Company takes as its totem and insignia one of the legendary wolves of Fenris tamed by Leman Russ in ancient times. One company is named after the Blackmane wolf, the Howler in the Night. Another company takes as its insignia the Thunderwolf who it is said still flees in terror from Russ around the world, the sound of its paws being the thunder, the glint of its teeth the lightning. Still another takes the two-headed wolf as its emblem, this being the symbol of both the monster that guards death's gate and the sign of Russ's two wolves, Freki and Geri.

Tales are told of a thirteenth Great Company that took as its sign the pelt of the Wulfen, the legendary spirit of evil whose curse can still turn Space Wolves into the monsters of that name. This was a bad choice for a banner; the Great Company vanished into the Eye of Terror during the Horus Heresy, and none know its fate. Since then the Space Wolves have traditionally considered the number thirteen unlucky.

Space Wolves Codex, Second Edition

Many are the trials which a young Fenrisian warrior must endure before he can join the ranks of the Space Wolves.  Even to catch the eye of one of the wandering grey Wolf Priests he must do some deed of valor which exceeds even the common bravery and might of the Fenrisians.  The many tests will try the warrior’s wit as well as his strength, and place him in moral dangers from which he must emerge alive if not unscathed.  Although the nature of these trials is varied, being determined by the great cunning of the Wolf Priests, the final test is always the same.  This is the test of Morkai, named after the legendary two-headed wolf that guards the gate of death.

Some fail this final test and are claimed by Morkai and forgotten.  The trial is long, for the young warrior is taken a thousand miles into the barren wastes beyond the Space Wolves fortress of the Fang.  He drinks from the Cup of Wulfen, and his body absorbs the first and most deadly gene-seed of the Space Wolves – the unique Canis gene helix, without which none of the other gene-seeds will work.

The Wulfen seed grows fast within the warrior, splitting bone and distorting flesh, turning man into a howling savage that is half human and half wolf.  The warrior hungers for flesh and his mind is possessed with bestial instincts which override his natural sanity.  Only one thought remains, and that is to return to the Fang, where his humanity can be restored by the insertion of other gene-seeds.  Many die under the curse of the Wulfen.  Others lose their way and are left to wander the barren wastes of Asaheim.  Yet some succeed, despite the multitude of wild beasts and natural perils that lie between them and their goal.  Even years afterwards, a Space Marine always retains a small part of the Wulfen spirit within him, a dark memory of the savage and bestial self that he has overcome.

The Wulfen Stone

This ancient gem was worked into a suit of armor by the great artificer Iron Priest Fengri and is one of the Space Wolves’ greatest treasures.  Within its murky depths lies the raging image of the Were, the monster of Fenris that lies coiled within the gene-helix of every Space Wolf.  As the bearer of the Wulfen Stone charges into combat his image changes into that of the Wulfen, its horror can be borne by few creatures.  

Space Wolves Codex, Third Edition

The Grand Annulus

The blank name stone once belonged to Jorin Bloodfang’s Great Company, known after as the Wulfen-kind.  It has come to represent all of the Great Companies in the history of the Space Wolves who have been destroyed in battle, lost on campaign or recanted their oaths of fealty.

The Mark of the Wulfen

This is a form of genetic instability to which some members of the Space Wolves are prone.  These individuals are literally ‘marked out’ by facial tattoos that are applied by a Wolf Priest.  Warriors bearing the Mark are both feared and revered by their fellow Space Wolves…  A model bearing the Mark of the Wulfen explodes into wild bestial fury in close combat…  He undergoes a physical transformation into a wild beast-like creature…

White Dwarf  244 (Early 3rd Edition Era)

Month after month, the Battle of the Fang continued.  Cardinal Bucharis ordered suicide squads to storm the armored portals of the Fang, promising massive promotions and rewards for the first berserk soldiers to break through.  The Space Wolves repelled each and every attack, inflicting crippling casualties on the Apostate's forces.  For three blood-stained years the siege carried on.  Assault after assault, shelling for weeks on end, fell against the Fang and yet the walls of the ancient citadel of the Space Wolves remained unbreached.  As the battle began its third year, it drew in more and more of Bucharis' soldiers, until almost three quarters of all his armies were on Fenris, many hundreds of thousands of men.

Even as Bucharis' second-in-command, Colonel Gasto of the Rigellian XXV, began preparations for what might have been the final, deciding assault, fate intervened.  On the edges of the Fenris star system a war fleet broke through from warpspace.  As Sehalla's fleet moved to attack, they were confronted by an armada of Space Wolves battlebarges and strike cruisers, returning to their home planet from a distant war.  The fury of Kyrl Grimblood's attack was unbounded, smashing over half of the renegade fleet in a single cataclysmic engagement.  As Grimblood's Great Company herded the traitors towards Fenris, the rest of the Space Wolves' starships attacked, catching Sehalla between two unstoppable forces.  Sehalla managed to escape with barely a quarter of his ships intact.  Wasting no time in pursuit, the newly arrived Space Wolves headed for Fenris.

The attack by Kyrl Grimblood's Great Company swept away tens of thousands of traitor Guardsmen in the first few days.  They were flung from the mountain passes around the Fang and those few that survived to reach Asaheim were set upon by giant wolf packs and the savage Wulfen.  Bucharis himself managed to avoid capture by escaping on a shuttle, meeting with Sehalla who dropped back out of the warp just long enough to pick up his master.  For those that remained on Fenris, death was a certainty.

Third Edition Era, White Dwarf  245 

The Wulfen

These fragmented pieces of text have been excerpted from Dionerius' Rise of Man, M31

...Among them were companies of savage creatures, their bestiality far outstripping even the barbaric Children of Russ.  By the Space Wolves these were called the Wulfen, at times spoken of as the thirteenth company.  They were feral of eye and febrile in nature, strong of limb and blanched by savage tattoos, able to tear a man asunder with their clawed hands and fangs.  Eschewing weapons of distance they would stalk their foes as wild beasts, slinking in the shadows and hunting by night 'neath the light of the full moon.  Variously, captains say the Wulfen were led by Hirkon Grail or Jorin Bloodfang, maybe when one was slain another took his place.

Fragment II

Now in the aftermath of the Siege of Terra there was a great confusion among the loyal followers of the Emperor, for they had lost their liege lord and were as knights without their king.  [[Text lost]] Many voiced loud the thought in the hearts of all - give chase to the traitors and destroy them utterly for the woe they had wrought.  The voice of Russ was raised loudest of all, [[Text lost]]  but Guilliman and Dorn gainsaid his counsel.  To enter the Occularis Terriblis would bring disorder on the surviving Legions, they said, leaving Man vulnerable to both the xenite and the apostate.  It is said that Russ, as was so often the way, took his own counsel and sent forth the Wulfen to hunt down Abaddon and his followers.  Others say that the thirteenth company pursued the heretics of their own accord, as hounds at the chase who heed not the calls of their huntsman.  Others still maintain that the Wulfen had been tainted by the Dark Gods and were summoned by their call to join the traitor legions in the netherworld.

Fragment III

The Wulfen were never seen nor heard of again, passing into the void and becoming lost to the eye and ear of Man.  It is said that upon the Space Wolves homeworld of Fenris the loss of the Wulfen was known by the wolves of Asaheim.  The great packs gathered before the gates of the Space Wolves monastery in their thousands until every wolf in the world was there.  That grey host howled of their loss for a hundred nights before returning to the hinterlands.

Third Edition Era, White Dwarf  246

Tales are told of a thirteenth Great Company whose Wolf Lord took as his sign the pelt of the Wulfen, the legendary spirit of evil whose curse can still turn Space Wolves into monsters of that name.  This Wolf Lord, his name has been lost to the ages, said that he could overcome anything, even the curse of the Wulfen, and that was why he took it as his totem.  His hubris cost him dear; the Great Company vanished into the Eye of Terror during the Horus Heresy, and none know of its fate.  Since then the Space Wolves have traditionally considered the number thirteen unlucky and a portent of bad omen.

The Horus Heresy

The rebellion of Warmaster Horus tore the Imperium apart at its very birth.  Horus was the Emperor's most trusted General and commanded almost a third of the forces of the Imperium at the time he rebelled.  The conflict set Space Marine against Space Marine as Legions (as the Chapters were then known) sided both for and against Horus.  At first, few suspected the heinous evil that was to be revealed as the Horus Heresy, and some Legions stood aside from the conflict unsure of what to do.  Some of the Legions that sided with Horus did so out of a sense of loyalty to their old Warmaster.  Legend has it that Horus denounced the Emperor and convinced his followers that the leader of humanity had been stricken with a murderous insanity spawned of warp-contagion or worse still, daemonic possession.  His loyal troops had no reason to suspect Horus at the time.  It was only later that they had cause to regret their decision, for it was Horus who had pledged allegiance to the Chaos gods in return for powers unimaginable to mortals, even such mortals as the Primarchs.

The Space Wolves remained loyal to the Emperor throughout the Heresy and took part in some of its most renowned actions.  From those times, ten thousand years ago, come few details of any certainty.  It was a time of legends.  It was an age of war.  Such records as made have not survived, and only later did chroniclers of the Administratum describe the bloody events of those days.  According to their own tradition, the Space Wolves were pivotal in one of the early campaigns of the war, when the entire Legion attacked and devastated the Thousand Sons Space Marines on their home world of Prospero.  The Primarch of the Thousand Sons, the cyclopean giant Magnus the Red, is said to have fought Leman Russ whilst all around the rival Space Marines battled for supremacy.  Eventually the Thousand Sons gave way and Magnus the Red fled with what remained of his forces.  It was while pursuing the Thousand Sons that the Space Wolves lost the Thirteenth Company, the Wulfen.  Since then the Space Wolves have never had a thirteenth Company nor has any Wolf Lord born the badge of the Wulfen.

The Space Wolves were not present during the final battle for Earth which ended the Heresy and doomed the Emperor to a living death in the stasis field of his Golden Throne.  Afterwards, Leman Russ was to rage against events that kept him from his beloved Emperor.  He led the Space Wolves deep into the Eye of Terror in pursuit of the renegade Space Marine Legions of Chaos.

The Blooding

When the aspirant awakens he is freezing cold. He lies naked in the snow with a knife of meteoric iron close at hand. He is feverish and distressed. His head throbs and his muscles ache. His gums bleed and his mouth burns. Near him stands the Wolf Priest that selected him, who tells the aspirant that the true test has now begun. To prove himself worthy he must make his way back to the Fang and gain entrance. He is now at the other side of the continent, a thousand miles away from home. The Wolf Priest disappears and the aspirant is truly on his own.

Although the aspirant does not know it, the feast had a purpose. The geneseed is beginning to work on his body, rushing through it and restructuring it. Muscle mass is being added, bones are beginning to fuse together, and the very structure of his brain is beginning to alter, quickening his reactions and heightening his perceptions.  Vestigial fangs are starting to emerge. The venison provides the raw protein for this, and the sacred ale was laced with the necessary trace chemicals to fuel the change.

The aspirant knows none of this. He is wracked with pain and his body stretches and grows. His mind is haunted by visions and sanity fades. He becomes wolf-like, feral, maddened by agony and hunger. Now is the worst time, he is constantly hungry because his changing body needs more and more nourishment if it is to sustain growth.  Failure to provide this will be fatal as his body begins to cannibalize itself.

These first few days are the most critical. The aspirant must feed often. He is usually left near a source of food such as an elk herd. Near mindless, he must hunt them down, eat their raw flesh and drink their blood. Some aspirants, unable to meet the challenge, perish. Some, whether due to some flaw in themselves or the geneseed, never get beyond this stage. They become mindless creatures, with an animal's cunning. They continue to grow and hunger for flesh, eventually becoming Wulfen, the most feared monsters on Fenris. Others only partially overcome this stage, and in later life will revert to the Wulfen state in times of crisis.

Wolf Priests

The Wolf Priests guard the Chapter's genetic seed, bio-culturing new implants and maintaining the vigor of the strain by weeding out any weakness or mutation. Their knowledge is deep, and for many centuries they have studied the effects of the cursed Wulfen gene helix in a search for a way to modify it and make safe the Chapter's genetic seed. However, their efforts have only succeeded in preventing the curse spreading, and it is unlikely that the damage can ever be repaired completely.

Third Edition Era, White Dwarf  283

Children of the Night: The Space Wolves 13th Company

Origins

Legend states that, many centuries ago, the Space Wolves numbered 13 Great Companies.  To this day, a place is reserved at the feasts held in the Hall of the Great Wolf for a Lord who has not attended his liege since the time Russ himself led his sons into battle.  Tales of this Company are vague and often contradictory, but one fact is known: the men of the 13th Great Company were marked apart from the rest of their Chapter, for every one of them bore the Curse of the Wulfen.

The origins of the 13th Great Company lie in the dawn of the Age of the Imperium, when the Primarchs were reunited with the Emperor and their Legions.  The Space Wolves, the 6th Legion, were the genetic progeny of Russ and carried within them a unique gift: the Canis Helix, the Mark of the Wolf that sets the Space Wolves apart from the Space Marines of other Chapters.  The Canis Helix invests the Space Wolves with the acute predatory senses of the wolves native to their home world of Fenris, but this gift comes at a price: the Curse of the Wulfen.  Those brothers who succumb to the Curse degenerate into savage, malformed parodies of their brethren.  In most cases, the Curse manifests during training, but in others, the effects of the Curse become apparent many years later in the heat of battle.  The Space Wolves' harsh induction regime generally ensures that these individuals perish at an early stage in the process.  However, at the time of the Great Crusade, when the Emperor and his Legions were conquering vast swathes of the galaxy in the name of Mankind, those brothers touched by the Curse were banded together into the 13th Company, where their feral ferocity could be brought to bear en masse and contained for the safety of the whole Legion.

That the 13th Company accompanied Russ on the Great Crusade is known, although the details of the campaigns in which they fought are lost to antiquity.  Only the names of actions long since forgotten - battles such as the First Siege of Methrix, the Battle of the Plains of Mo-Shan, the Fall of the Paramors of the Morpheus Rift, and the Crossing of Hangman's Void - appear in the archives.

The fate of the 13th Company is a subject of numerous myths, and the Space Wolves themselves will not say which hold the true account.  In truth, it is probable that an element of veracity exists within each and that none are wholly inaccurate. 

There are some sagas that outsiders are never permitted to hear, ones told by the Rune Priests on only the most sacred of occasions.  Though some sagas have been set to record by strangers, and the Space Wolves have spoken, some would say bragged, at length regarding certain aspects of their long and glorious history, there are other passages that mean death should outsiders overhear them.

The saga known as "The War of the Giants" purports to be a record of the fall of Prospero, one of the opening conflicts of the Horus Heresy.  The Space Wolves were ordered to assault their brother Legion, the Thousand Sons, and to call them to account for the sorcerous actions of their Primarch, Magnus the Red.  The saga states that the 13th Company was at the head of the assault on the Thousand Sons' home world and that the sheer ferocity of their attack smashed a hole in the traitor lines through which the remainder of the Space Wolves could penetrate.  At the height of the battle, it is told that Magnus opened a portal, a means of escaping the destruction wrought by the Space Wolves, Magnus and the remnants of his Legion fled, but it is said that Russ ordered the 13th Company to give chase.  In so doing, they left the realm of Man, never to return.

Fragments of other records suggest that the disappearance of the 13th Company did not occur until after the Siege of the Emperor's Palace, which saw the rebel Warmaster Horus finally defeated and the Traitor Legions routed back to the Eye of Terror.  It is stated that in the wake of the galaxy-spanning civil war, which saw the Imperium brought to its knees by Horus's treachery, the Ultramarines' Primarch Roboute Guilliman sought to consolidate the forces of Mankind.  But Leman Russ, headstrong and proud as he was, demanded that the Traitors not be allowed to establish a foothold within the Eye of Terror and that the Imperium should strike immediately.  Though Guilliman and Dorn overrode him, it has been suggested that Russ may have dispatched the 13th Company with orders to hunt down Abaddon, the Warmaster's Lieutenant, and bring his head as a trophy to set before the Emperor.  Other, less charitable theories suggest the Wulfen gave chase on their own accord, and some even whisper that the 13th Company had been tainted by Chaos all along and were seeking to join the ranks of the Traitors.

This legend bears up well to the little evidence that exists to support it, and the timing of their emergence from the Eye indicates that the Wulfen may be pursuing Abaddon.

It has been noted by Inquisitor Asmorales that the numbers of the Wulfen-kind that disappeared 10,000 years ago must have been equivalent to a contemporary Space Marine Chapter, owing to the far larger size of the First Founding Legions.  To date, only a handful of men of the 13th Company have been observed.  Thus, the Inquisitor believes that the majority of the Company remains within the Eye of Terror, has been slain, or has embarked on a mission the nature of which only the 13th Company understands.  It is also likely that a number of separate contingents of Wulfen-kind are at large, each harrying the forces of Chaos and led by a Lord who is vassal to an individual yet to reveal his hand in the conflict.

Gene-Seed

That the Canis Helix is responsible for the condition of the Wulfen is known, and it has been suggested that the savage force that resides within each Space Wolf has allowed the 13th Company to survive the long millennia of contact with the power of Chaos. 

What is not known is whether the 13th Company's presence within the Eye of Terror has tainted its gene-seed in any way.  Many simply point to the bestial appearance of the Wulfen-kind and their use of scavenged Traitor wargear as all the evidence needed to condemn them, but others defend their methods as pure necessity.

Wulfen packs are often led into battle by Wolf Priests, and it is theorized that these individuals play a vital role in controlling the excesses of the Curse.  Wolf Priests of the Space Wolves are the keepers of the genetic lore passed down to them in direct line from Russ and appear to be the only men able to control a Space Wolf when the Were is upon him.  The Wolf Priests are obviously acting as guardians, leading packs of Wulfen in combat, and ministering to their charges between conflicts.

The Adeptus Mechanicus undoubtedly wish to analyze the gene-seed of slain 13th Company Space Wolves but, to date, have not succeeded in doing so.  Should the Adeptus Mechanicus find any impurities, then the scale of the Imperium's response and which side the Space Wolves would take could only be imagined.

Battle-Cry

Legends tell of the howl of the Wulfen; mortal ears have now heard it for the first time in 10,000 years.  Eyewitnesses report that the effect is devastating to enemy morale and often equally unnerving for friendly troops.

From the Saga of Jorin Bloodfang

In time, the ranks of the 6th Legion

swelled to a great host.

And many bore the Mark 

[FRAGMENT MISSING] 

And so Russ banded them all into

one Great Company.

And to Bloodfang fell the honor

Of leading them to laurels and glory

In the name of Russ and the

All Father.

Bloodfang named [FRAGMENT MISSING]

Grail, Orkbane, Sigurd, Thorbrand,

and Grafield.

To each a retinue was granted.

And as a band of brothers the

13th Great Company

Reaved across the stars.

Neither xenite, or Apostate,

nor Fiend

Could stand before [FRAGMENT MISSING]

the Were was upon them.

But at the Gates of [FRAGMENT MISSING]

did Bloodfang rage

And plunge headlong into

[FRAGMENT MISSING]

Neither kin nor Master could

restrain him.

And beyond the Gates did the 

Wulfen-kind pass.

At Asaheim, the Wolves did cry for 

one hundred nights

To mourn the passage of their kin.

Space Wolves Codex, Fifth Edition

The Test of Morkai

Many are the trials which a young Fenrisian warrior must endure before he can join the ranks of the Space Wolves.  The many tests will try the warrior’s wit as well as his strength, and place him in mortal dangers from which he must emerge alive if not unscathed.  Although the nature of these trials is varied, the final test is always the same.  This is the test of Morkai, named after the legendary two-headed wolf that guards the gates of death.

Some fail this final test and are claimed by Morkai and forgotten.  The trial is long, for the warrior is taken a thousand miles into the barren wastes beyond the fortress of the Fang.  He drinks from the Cup of Wulfen, and his body absorbs the first and most deadly gene-seed of the Space Wolves – the unique Canis gene helix.

The frightening potency of the Canis Helix is legendary, and has accounted for the lives of millions of aspirants as their bodies writhe and churn in anguish.  Those it does not kill, it transforms into a slavering monster.  The Canis Helix is necessary, however, as without this essential part of Leman Russ’ heritage the other gene helices cannot be implanted at all.  Whilst in the throes of transformation, the aspirant is cast out into the wilderness to make his own way back to the Fang.  The gene works hideous changes on the warrior’s mind and body; he reverts to a primal state where his bones split and buckle, thick hair sprouts across his body and his only desire is to gorge on fresh meat and glut himself on blood.  His body mass grows by up to eighty percent, many of his bones fuse, and fangs sprout from his gums as he undergoes the transformation.  Whilst his body is wracked with pain, the warrior must overcome the shadow within him lest it possess him entirely.  If he does not, he will become one of the giant , feral creatures, known as the Wulfen, who failed to overcome the curse.  To become one of the Wulfen is to fall from grace, and to roam the wilderness for evermore as a creature of the darkest night.

If the aspirant manages to find his way back to the Fang through the predator-haunted blizzards of Asaheim, he is implanted with the remainder of the Space Wolves’ gene-seed, stabilizing the Canis Helix and completing his apotheosis.  A minority of these warriors do not completely conquer the gene-seed’s original effects, however, and in times of great stress, they revert to the hulking, bloodthirsty state that haunts their soul like a ghastly shadow.  This is the Curse of the Wulfen, and it is rightly feared.

Yet some succeed, despite the ravages wrought upon them, the multitude of wild beasts and the natural perils that lie between them and their goal.  These aspirants are welcomed to the Chapter and take their place amongst the Space Wolves.  As Space Marines they will live for hundreds of years, if they do not die in battle, and they will voyage through the stars to fight in the Emperor’s name.  They will fight monstrous Orks and heinous Daemons of Chaos.  They will encounter the mind-numbing horrors of the Tyranids and they will endure the indescribable perils of Warpspace.  To a man born and raised amidst the ice and fire of Fenris, this is indeed a life amongst the gods.

The Sons of Russ

As incredible as it may sound, Space Wolves have uncanny abilities above and beyond even the superhuman Space Marines of the other Chapters.  Due to the peculiarities of Russ’ heritage, each of the Space Wolves has incredibly acute senses that can detect the scent of his prey in a snowstorm or pick out his quarry’s breathing pattern in the midst of a raging battle.  Over the course of his life, his teeth will lengthen and stretch into vicious-looking fangs that are capable of denting plasteel, and his skin becomes as resilient as cured leather.  Some carry the genetic heritage of the Canis Helix even deeper within them, and there are many dark tales of the horrific transformations that these warriors undergo when the battle-rage is upon them.

The Wulfen Unleashed     999.M41

When the Cadian battlegroup ‘Creed’s Blade’ volunteers for a controversial counter-invasion in the Eye of Terror to destabilize the daemonic armies massing upon the hell-world of Voidsoul, many high-ranking strategos consider the Cadians damned to a futile and horrific death.  Sadly, their calculations prove correct.  Thousands of Imperial Guardsmen die in terror and pain over the first few hours of the invasion.  Just as the Daemon warhost begin to surround the Cadian invaders, however, something incredible happens.  Long-limbed silhouettes appear amongst the greenish fires of Voidsoul for a moment, and out of nowhere come pack after pack of ravenous wolf-things, jaws snapping and claws caked with blood.  Bipedal only in the loosest sense, with pieces of broken power armor clinging to their overly muscled frames the slavering, hair-covered beasts fall upon the Daemon legions with a savage fury.  Even the upright, proud figures that stalk amongst them are hideous to behold.  The few Guardsmen that escape the resultant carnage and make it back to the Cadian Gate alive speak of their feral rescuers in hushed tones, for if they were indeed the lost brothers of the 13th Company, they were every bit as terrifying as the Daemon-things of Voidsoul.

Wolf Priests

Wolf Priests are learned in the ways of bio-mechanics and chirurgy, and it is they who oversee the long and dangerous transformation from human aspirant to superhuman Space Marine.  The first and last face a warrior will see in his career as a Space Wolf is the lupine skull-mask of the Wolf Priest, for it is he who guides a warrior’s apotheosis in those early years, and he who administers the Rites of Morkai when that warrior bleeds his last upon the field of battle.

Though they reap the gene-seed of the fallen in much the same way as the Apothecaries of other Space Marine Chapters, preserving the genetic heritage of his brethren is far from the Wolf Priest’s only duty.  They also function as cult leaders and spiritual guides in the manner of a Space Marine Chaplain, each a living conduit that maintains the Chapter’s connection to the Imperial creed.  It is the Wolf Priests who keep the curse of the Wulfen from overtaking the Space Wolves, and they take full responsibility for the development of their charges, be it martially, spiritually, and mentally.  Wolf Priests are beholden to none save the Great Wolf and the Primarch himself.  Even the proudest Wolf Lord bows before the ancient wisdom of a Wolf Priest and will step aside from his path, for every Lord was brought into the brotherhood of the Space Wolves by such a mentor, and will honour this debt until death.

The Mark of the Wulfen

The Mark of the Wulfen is a corruption of the Canis Helix that can cause the bearer to devolve into a killing machine when the battle frenzy is upon him…These attacks are made using the marked models’ claws and teeth…

Space Wolves Codex, Seventh Edition

Prospero Burns

The Space Wolves were pivotal in one of the early campaigns of the war, when the entire Legion attacked and devastated the Thousand Sons Space Marines on their home world of Prospero.  At the battle’s height, Leman Russ fought the Primarch of the Thousand Sons, the cyclopean giant Magnus the Red, in personal combat.  Though Magnus was a psyker of terrible magnitude, he could not withstand the strength and ferocity of the Wolf-King.  After a short but fierce duel, Russ struck Magnus down, though the Prosperine Sorcerer used fell magicks to escape before Russ could deliver the killing blow.  With the loss of their Primarch, the Thousand Sons faced annihilation.  In their desperation, they fled the field of battle through a portal that led to the daemonic realm known as the Eye of Terror.  It was whilst pursuing the Thousand Sons that the Space Wolves lost the Thirteenth Company.  These ferocious warriors, their ranks riddled with a bestial genetic curse, were known as the Wulfen-kind.  Since its loss that day, the Space Wolves have never again had a Thirteenth Company, nor has any Wolf Lord borne the badge of the Wulfen.

The Forging of a Legend

As incredible as it may sound, Space Wolves have uncanny abilities above and beyond even the superhuman Space Marines of the other Chapters.  As genetic descendants of Russ, whose own lupine senses were as razor-sharp as an apex predator, every Space Wolf has incredible eyesight combined with a sense of smell that can detect the scent of his prey in a snowstorm, and acute hearing that can pick out his quarry’s breathing pattern in the midst of a raging battle.  During his life, his teeth will lengthen and stretch into vicious-looking fangs that are capable of denting plasteel, and his skin becomes as resilient as cured leather.  

By some quirk of fate, a genetic flaw took root deep within the Canis Helix very early in the Chapter’s history, and it affects each and every one of the Sons of Russ.  For most, this manifests in a berserk battle-fury when their inner beast takes over.  Some Space Wolves, however, carry the genetic heritage of the Canis Helix even deeper within them, and there are many dark tales of the horrific transformations that these warriors undergo in battle.

The Wulfen Stone

The Space Wolves fear and revere this gem in equal measure, for it represents both the greatest strength of their gene-heritage and their most terrible curse.  Bound within a large blood diamond like a caged animal lies the raging spirit of the Wulfen – the inner beast that lurks within the heart and soul of every Space Wolf.  Forged by the Iron Priest Fengri, the greatest artificer of his time, the Wulfen Stone is a relic carried to battle in only the most extreme circumstances.  Its presence triggers violent urges within the Sons of Russ, an uncontrollable rage to spill blood that any who bear the Canis Helix cannot deny.

Champions of Fenris A Codex Space Wolves Supplement, Seventh Edition

The Wolf Brothers

In the aftermath of the Horus Heresy the Space Marine Legions were broken down into smaller formations known as Chapters, so that no-one could ever again hold power over an entire Legion.  Some of the Legions divided many times and spawned many successors, while the Space Wolves divided only once.  Their sole successor Chapter, named the Wolf Brothers, was forged during the Second Founding.  It was the dream of the Primarch Leman Russ that the Wolf Brothers would be the first in a series of Chapters drawn from his genetic ancestry, and the Space Wolves, along with their successors, would create a cordon around the Eye of Terror to shield against future attacks from the Traitor Legions.

Tragically, the gene-seed of the Wolf Brothers was fatally flawed, leading to the manifestation of large numbers of Wulfen and other, more terrible, abominations within their ranks.  Shortly after their creation the Chapter was disbanded by the Ordo Astartes, its stores of gene-seed destroyed and its surviving battle-brothers given the choice between death in glorious battle or a shameful execution.  However, before the Ordo Astartes’ order could be fully carried out much of the Chapter disappeared, the Wolf Brothers vanishing into the depths of space.  Some within the Adeptus Terra accused Leman Russ of warning the successor Chapter or even aiding their escape, though no proof was ever uncovered.  To this day rumours persist of small bands of Wolf Brothers fighting with Renegade Chapters or living as pariahs in the shadow of the Eye of Terror.

The War of The Wolf

There are few enemies the Space Wolves loathe more than those who turn against their own kind; traitors, oath-breakers and turncoats.  When Logan Grimnar learnt that the arch-traitor Abaddon had found one of the lost Wolf Brothers, he assembled the Champions of Fenris to deliver the Space Wolves’ justice.

For the Space Wolves, one of their greatest and most closely-guarded secrets is the fate of their one and only successor Chapter, the Wolf Brothers.  Created as part of the Second Founding, the Wolf Brothers’ gene-see proved unpredictable and unstable, combining all the worst aspects of the Canis Helix and the Curse of the Wulfen.  After the Chapter was disbanded hundreds of Wolf Brothers vanished entirely, taking with them prized gene-seed created from the Space Wolves’ own stockpiles.

In the year 612.M41 word reached the Great Wolf that one of these long lost brothers was found.  For millennia the Space Wolves had been watching over their wayward kin, secretly shielding them from both the wrath of the Imperium and the influences of Chaos - though not always with success.  So was it to be this time, and the glad news of the Wolf Brother’s discovery was tainted by word that the planet upon which he rested was in the hands of the Black Legion.  Worse still, rumor placed the arch-traitor Fabius Bile within the system, and Grimnar knew it could only be the Wolf Brother and his unstable gene-seed that Bile sought.  Access to the successor Chapter’s gene-seed would enable the traitorous geneticist to create an army of monstrously corrupt, mutated horrors to fight for the forces of Chaos.  The Great Wolf would be damned before he let this come to pass.  Calling his Wolf Guard to his side the Old Wolf ordered his Great Company gathered.  So armed, Grimnar, his most trusted champions and a small fleet of ships set off into the Sea of Stars to find the Wolf Brother and slay any who dared stand in their way.

Space Wolves Codex, Wulfen Edition, Seventh Edition

The Lost Brothers Return

Ten millennia ago, the Space Wolves brought devastation to the traitors of the Thousand Sons.  Yet through foul sorcery, the scions of Magnus escaped into the warp.  But they were pursued.  An entire Great Company - the Thirteenth, the Wulfen-kind - vowed to follow the traitors unto death.  They have not been seen since...until now.

Upon the hive world of Nurades, Harald Deathwolf and his Great Company fought against a great horde of Daemons spawned by an infernal warp rift.  In their final battle against the creatures of Chaos in the planet’s northern regions, the Deathwolves were outmatched.  Standing back to back, fighting to their last breaths, they prepared to embrace death, bolter and chainsword in hand.  Then salvation arrived.

As Harald prepared his Thunderwolf Riders for one last, glorious charge, the hackles rose on the back of his neck.  He looked around to see massive figures tearing into the Daemonic horde.  Bloodletters, Plaguebearers, Daemonettes and Horrors alike could not stand against the savagery of these warriors.  The Deathwolves raised a howling battle cry as they prepared to aid their mysterious saviors… and to their amazement, it was answered.  As battle raged, the true visage of the Space Wolves’ allies became clear.  They were huge, bestial terrors, soaked in blood and monstrous to behold.  But there was no mistaking their battered grey power armor and the distinctive marks of the Canis Helix.  These warriors were Space Wolves.

When the battle was over, Harald ordered the newcomers taken under guard and returned to the Gang.  There, it became clear that, for good or ill, the Thirteenth Company had returned...

Wulfen

With a howl that puts ice in the blood the Wulfen bound towards their prey, fangs bared and claws outstretched.  In their haste to glut their insatiable appetite for slaughter, the Wulfen lope forward at a daunting pace - their anatomies, altered by the strange curse that assails their bodies and souls alike, are perfectly adapted for the violence at hunt’s end.  Girded for war by Iron Priests, the Wulfen bear potent artefacts: stormfrag launchers hurl explosives into the midst of the foe, sowing panic and disorder, as these bestial creatures lash out with crackling claws, axes and hammers.  Their return to the fold has caused much controversy, for the Wulfen appear on the brink of berserk rage at all times.  Worse still, those who hear the bloodlust in their war cries feel their own best within awaken…

Curse of the Wulfen

All Space Wolves bear their Primarch’s unique genetic legacy in the form of the Canis Helix.  Though a vital part of their transformation into Sky Warriors and the source of their greatest strength, exposure to the primal ferocity of a Wulfen in battle can overwhelm their senses, turning proud warriors into little more than beasts as they launch themselves at their prey.  The Chapter’s youngest warriors are especially susceptible to the call of the Wulfen, for fiery aggression ever courses through their veins.  Yet even though more experienced warriors have learned to control their battle fury, the potential lies within all Space Wolves to give in to the raging murderlust caged within them.

Even though a brief loss of restraint has seen the berserk ferocity of Space Wolf packs snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, the Sons of Russ must redouble their efforts to control their inner beasts lest the Wulfen’s curse infect the entire Chapter and condemn them to a feral devolution.

Space Wolves Codex, Eigth Edition

Return of the 13th Great Company

On the hive world of Nurades, Harald Deathwolf and his Great Company slaughter the mutants spawned by a raging warp storm, but are ambushed by a horde of Daemons.  Mysterious hulking figures leap to the aid of the Space Wolves, shredding the creatures of Chaos and covering the battlefield with their ichor.  These newcomers wear armor bearing a mark not seen in ten thousand years - the icon of the Wulfenkind, emblem of the lost 13th Great Company.

Wulfen

With a howl that puts ice in the blood, the Wulfen bound towards their prey, fangs bared and claws outstretched.  In their hast to glut their insatiable appetite for slaughter, the Wulfen lope forward at a daunting pace - their anatomies, altered by the strange curse that assails their bodies and souls alike, are perfectly adapted for the violence at hunt’s end.

There has been much speculation surrounding the Wulfen since they were first discovered by Harald Deathwolf.  Their armor and heraldry was that of the 13th Great Company, who to a warrior were lost nearly ten thousand years prior, during the assault on Prospero.  Are these bestial battle-brothers the same Space Marines who pursued the Thousand Sons?  Had they somehow survived the long millennia inside the Eye of Terror?  Are their hulking forms the result of a flaw in the Canis Helix?  The answers to these questions and many more are unknown to the Wolf Lords and the Fenrisian priesthoods.  But from the moment they appeared the Wulfen battled for their Chapter with unbridled fury, their animal rage likely saving the Space Wolves whom they fought alongside.

After revealing themselves, the first Wulfen were taken to the Fang.  Under the orders of Logan Grimnar, the Iron Priest Hrothgar Swordfang tested the Wulfen’s capabilities, arming them with chainswords and axes and pitting them against practice Servitors.  To Swordfang’s surprise, the hulking Wulfen handled these comparatively delicate weapons clumsily, quickly abandoning them to savage the Servitors with their bare hands.  On the ninth day of trials, a Wulfen warrior took up one of the relic weapons that had hung in the Fang’s halls for untold centuries.  The Wulfen soon proved well suited to using the prodigiously large ceremonial weapon, wrapping its claws neatly around the haft of the great frost axe before hefting and swinging the colossal blade cleanly through a nearby statue.  Perhaps this weapon was created for warriors of equal strength who had once existed in the Chapter’s past; or perhaps the coming of the Wulfen had been foreseen, and this relic had been created specifically for their bestial hands.

Whatever the case, a search of the Fang produced more of the ancient weapons, along with other tools suited for use by the Wulfen, such as impulse-triggered grenade modules that integrated seamlessly with the Wulfen’s pattern of neural activity.

Girded for war, the Wulfen have been returned to the fold of the Space Wolves, and others of their number have since been found roaming the stars.  But despite their might and fervour, their place amongst the Sky Warriors has caused much controversy.  The Wulfen appear on the brink of berserk rage at all times.  Worse still, those who hear the bloodlust in their war cries feel their own beast within awaken.  Those battle-brothers who succumb to the Curse of the Wulfen completely are themselves transformed, body and mind, and taken in by the Wulfen packs.

Wulfen Dreadnoughts

Each of the Dreadnoughts housed deep beneath the Fang contains a great Space Wolves hero shorn of his warrior physique.  But an even crueler fate awaits some of these entombed warriors.  Though their bodies are all but lifeless, they still bear the genetic heritage of their Primarch, the Canis Helix, and in rare cases the sleeping beast within their psyche is awoken.  The Curse of the Wulfen afflicts the warrior bound within the Dreadnought; sometimes it will distort his crippled body even as it ravages his mid, forcing the Iron Priests to refit the sarcophagus so his gnarled features glower and snarl from within.  The animal fury of the battle-brother provokes the Dreadnought’s machine spirit, adding to its simmering rage a mindless hunger for violence and transforming the walking war engine into a Wulfen Dreadnought. 

Wolf Priests

Though they reap the gene-seed of the fallen in much the same way as the Apothecaries of other Space Marine Chapters, preserving the genetic heritage of his brethren is far from the Wolf Priest’s only duty.  They also function as cult leaders and spiritual guides in the manner of a Space Marine Chaplain, each a living conduit that maintains the Chapter’s connection to the Imperial Creed.  It is the Wolf Priests who keep the Curse of the Wulfen from overtaking the Space Wolves, and they take full responsibility for the development of their charges, martially, spiritually and mentially.  Wolf Priests are beholden to none save the Great Wolf and the Primarch himself.  Even the proudest Wolf Lord bows before the ancient wisdom of a Wolf Priest and will step aside from his path, for every Lord was brought into the brotherhood of the Space Wolves by such a mentor, and will honor this debt until death.  

The Curse of Russ

Having shown their strength and savagery in many battles, packs of Primaris Space Marines are deployed by Wolf Lords more readily.  Though they do not know the customs of Fenris, they are innate hunters, and show a preternatural ability to coordinate their attacks with those of other Space Wolves.  Ulrik the Slayer proposes that within the Primaris Marines, the key to curing the Wulfen’s curse may be found.  But he is soon proven wrong.  Whilst purging a Drukhari raiding party on the mining world of Smelter’s Heap, several packs of Inceptors fighting alongside Wulfen succumb to the bestial affliction.  Rather than using their assault bolters to outrange the Wyches they fight, they Inceptors charge heedlessly into their enemy and use their firearms as brutal makeshift bludgeons.  Through sheer animal fury the Inceptors are able to drive off their foe, and with the battle over the regain control of their passions once more.  But it is revealed that, through the genetic link to the Primarch, these Sons of Russ are just as susceptible to the Curse of the Wulfen as any other member of the Space Wolves.

The Sons of Russ: The Forging of a Legend

By some quirk of fate, a flaw took root deep within the Space Wolves’ gene-seed legacy - known as the Canis Helix - very early in the Chapter’s history, and it still affects each and every one of the Sons of Russ.  For most, this manifests in a berserk Battle-fury when their inner beast takes over.  Some carry the genetic heritage of the Canis Helix even deeper within them.  There are dark tales of the horrific transformations that these warriors undergo in battle.

The Test of Morkai

Although the length and nature of any further trials an aspirant must endure will differ, the final test is always the same.  This is the Test of Morkai, and it will challenge even the hardiest aspirant to the very limit of his endurance.  Some fail this final test and are claimed by Morkai and forgotten.  The trial is long, for the warrior is taken a thousand miles into the barren wastes beyond the fortress of the Fang.  He drinks from the Cup of Wulfen, and his body absorbs the first and most deadly gene-seek of the Space Wolves - the unique Canis Helix.  The frightening potency of the Canis Helix is legendary, and has accounted for the lives of millions of aspirants as their bodies writhe and churn in anguish.  Those it does not kill it transforms into slavering monsters.  The Canis Helix is necessary, however, as without this essential part of Leman Russ’ heritage the other gene helices cannot be implanted at all.

Whilst in the throes of transformation, the aspirant is cast out into the wilderness to make his own way back to the Fang.  The gene works hideous changes on the warrior’s mind and body; he reverts to a primal state where his bones split and buckle, thick hair sprouts across his body and his only desire is to glut himself on fresh meat and blood.  His body mass grows by up to eighty percent, many of his bones fuse, and fangs sprout from his gums.  Whilst his body is wracked with pain, the warrior must overcome the shadow within him lest it possess him entirely.  If he does not, he will become one of the giant, feral creatures known as the Wulfen, those who failed to overcome the curse.  To become one of the Wulfen is to fall from grace, and to roam the wilderness for evermore as a creature of the darkest night, or be captured by his former brothers and held as a caged beast until the time is right for them to be set loose in battle.

If the aspirant manages to find his way back to the Fang despite the ravages wrought upon him and the many perils that lie between him and his goal, he is implanted with the remainder of the Space Wolves’ gene-seed, stabilizing the Canis Helix and completing his apotheosis into a fully fledged Sky Warrior.  With time, it becomes clear that some of these warriors have not completely conquered the Canis Helix’s original effects, and in times of great stress they will alter into the bestial state that haunts their soul like a ghastly spectre.  This is the Curse of the Wulfen, and it is rightly feared.  However, as Space Marines these successful aspirants will live for hundreds of years, if they do not die in battle, and will voyage through the stars to fight in the Emperor’s name...To a man born and raised amongst the warrior tribes of Fenris, this is indeed a life amongst the gods.

Short Story about a Trial of Morkai

Head for the tallest peak, thought Aerrod, fighting the temptation to drop to all fours.  His vision was clouding over; he could feel his pulse pounding in his throat and sweat poured down his hairy flanks despite the intense cold.  Yet he hung doggedly onto the pact he had made with Geidric, cleaving to it like a shipman clutching the remains of a kraken-shattered vessel.  Head for the tallest peak, Geidric had said, green eyes glinting under an unruly mane turned white by the stresses of the last few weeks.  There they could meet up and keep each other sane, just like in the other trials.  Not far now.  Not far to the safety of the pack.

The beast inside Aerrod roared as he ran, a caged animal clawing at the insides of his ribs as it struggled to break free.  Old habits stoked the embers of pain into fires of anger and then into an inferno of strength.  He launched front the edge of a chasm, sailing through the nothingness for a second before catching rough black rock.  He scrabbled upward, claws clacking, and hauled himself over the edge.  The part of him that was still human felt a flare of triumph.  Nearly there.  He broke into a loping run.

Something flew at Aerrod from behind a boulder, a monstrous mass of sinew and fur with a snapping white snout.  It bowled him into the snow, its jaws slinging strands of blood-flecked drool.  Aerrod rolled with the impact, bringing his knee up to the towering thing’s chest and forcing it away with a savage thrust of his leg.  It rode the momentum and reared up, tall as an ice troll, clawed arms wide as it howled into the crystal skies.

Aerrod felt the beast in his chest howl, too, in anguish rather than joy.  The thing had green eyes.  Green eyes and white hair.

The monster that had once been Geidric pounced, but Aerrod was already rolling, the serum in his blood giving him a speed no mortal could hope to match.  As the white beast’s claws plowed into the snow, the savage voice inside Aerrod roared for him to bite, to rip out his foe’s throat with his teeth and gorge on its hot corpse.  Even as his vision misted red, he forced himself to block it out; to think with the mind of a man, not an animal.

The Geidric-thing leapt once more, but this time Aerrod was ready.  Flinging a handful of pack snow at the creature’s face to distract it, he brought his other hand round in a wide arc.  The jagged rock in his fist slammed into the beast’s temple with bone-cracking force.  It barrelled into him nonetheless, but its limbs were still.  The rough white fur of Gaedric’s cooling corpse pressed down on him as Aerrod waited for the red mist to fade.  Once the thunder of his pulse had begun to subside he pushed the lumpen thing from him, standing up bloody but defiant.  His body was changing, transforming, devolving even, but his mind was still his own.

As he trudged towards the peak, he saw something up there, glowering down at him with red eyes.  A wolf-helmed warrior; deathly legend brought to life.

The figure nodded curtly and disappeared into the arctic mist.