40K: Magnus Has Been Very Busy – Ritual of the Damned Secrets
Ritual of the Damned picks up a story we haven’t returned to in 3 years. Magnus the Red is at the center of it all.
Ritual of the Damned may be the first volume of Psychic Awakening that directly addresses what is going on and ups the ante. At last we get more than murmors of something ominous going on. We get to see one of it’s architects and exactly what he is up to. Of course Magnus is one of the nexuses of the galaxy-spanning events.
Wrath of Magnus Continues
Ritual of the Damned directly picks up the story started with November 2016’s Wrath of Magnus. You will recall that at the very end of Wrath of Magnus, the Thousand Sons, Magnus and Ahriman used billions of doomed citizens from the Fenris system to enact a ritual. This was successful and Sortiarius, aka the Planet of the Sorcerers was successfully teleported out of the Eye of Terror and back into the Prospero System. such a large psychic disturbance began to tear apart reality and this single act was one of the primary instigators of the Great Rift. The Story picks up with Magnus’s Arrival.
Magnus Fortifies
It is explicitly stated that Magnus has learned his lesson from the Burning of Prospero, and will never again see his Legion driven from their home. His twin planets lie in the Forzare system, itself the centermost hub of the larger Prosperan Rift with it’s many adjacent star systems. The Forzare system cannot be approached directly, and Magnus has been very busy. Prospero has been fully restored to its previous glory, and its libraries rebuilt. Most importantly the entire series of systems was fortified with magic, illusions and the raw stuff of the warp. In effect Magnus has built a warp-enhanced fortress inside Imperial space with himself, a Deamon-Primarch as supreme leader, and all but impossible to attack.
With the Prosperine Rift secure, Magnus summoned the Rehati, the greatest of the Thousand Sons sorcerers from across the galaxy to his side – where he gunned them down, ensuring no future rebellions from his rule.
Magnus Send Forth a Call
At one with the warp, Magnus can feel the Psychic awakening and sees the future version of humanity emerging. He sends forth a psychic beacon, calling every human psyker to make the pilgrimage to Propero. There to live out a life free from persecution and fear, a life in service to Magnus and the Thousand Sons. While potent psykers like the Grey Knights see the tissue-thin lies of Magnus’ call, untold numbers make the journey and many survive to serve the Cyclops.
Magnus Attempts to Jump Start the Psychic Awakening
With thousands of newly arrived psykers and their numbers growing every day, Magnus begins a Ritual. This is no mere attempt to appease the Dark Powers, but instead a great work to accelerate the pace of Humanity’s Psychic Awakening a hundredfold across the galaxy. Once enacted Magnus plans to present himself, the most powerful psyker in the galaxy, as the new leader of a psychic mankind.
Magnus is Only Delayed
Enter the Grey Knights and the Dark Angels. There is much Imperial bravery, sacrifice, death and ultimately a narrow victory. Many, many Astartes die, but the Ritual is stopped. Magnus and the Thousand Sons are merely delayed and the Imperials must flee at speed to prevent total destruction at the hands of the Primarch. But nothing is fundamentally changed. Magnus and the Thousand Sons are immortal, and are now a permanent thorn in the side of the Imperium, similar to the Maelstrom and the Red Corsairs.
Most troubling of all is that Magnus sees what is occurring across the galaxy with clarity and is working to facilitate it. The Emperor is a motionless husk on the Golden Throne. The Cyclops has all the time in the world.
~Where do you think the overall 40K narrative is heading?
