Visar Taril

The Midnight King
Amongst all the many great names which have been carved into the skin of the galaxy over the last ten millennium, perhaps none has been so synonymous with creeping, icy dread as the name of Visar Taril, lord of the VIII Legion, once a loyal son of the Emperor, now the avatar of the Plague God in the mortal universe. From his birth, Taril was raised in an environment of fear and suffering, where idealism was crushed under the heel of cold, sadistic violence. The Primarch took that into his own being, using fear and bloodshed to break his enemy's spirit in the brutal gang wars that made up his childhood. When the Emperor found him, he was the ruler of a terror-state, keeping the population oppressed through the use of nightmare-weapons and sheer brutality.

When Taril was given his legion, until then known for their bloodless compliance operations, his ideals began to seep into them too. Aspirants were taught in the ways of psychological warfare, using whatever means necessary to destroy an enemy both mentally and physically, and within a few short years the legion's reputation was sullied beyond repair by the gallons of civilian blood drenching their hands. Most radically, Visar brought his legion his signature weapon, the hallucinogenic toxin Phobosia: chemically crafted to induce terrifying visions in those afflicted.

For most of the crusade, Visar kept up his experimentation, granted permission to establish a facility on the world of Barbarus. There he crafted some of his most infamous weapons, like the Viral Phobosia strains designed to infect entire planets with what he called "Terrorplague". When the Emperor was told of his experimentation with the Orkoid species, he pulled the plug, and sent a fleet to burn Barbarus and all the twisted knowledge on the world.

Visar's only sentimental act would be his damnation. With a team of scientists, he remained in the deepest caverns of his base, hoping to salvage his most valuable work. However, the Emperor's bombardment damaged the storage tanks of several volatile chemicals, allowing them to leak and combine into a supertoxin that infected the facility in minutes. Visar's staff were killed, and the Primarch himself severely weakened, forced to hide his rotting visage from his legion as numerous mutating viruses and bacteria ravaged his body day-in and day-out: the result of his own sadistic works.

Rise of the Lord of Dread
When Visar Taril first landed on Madrem, the world was a cesspit of gang violence, corruption, and disorder. The closest thing the planet had to a functioning government was the puppet-state which was effectively a legitimised vassal of the many gangs that made up the true halls of power on Madrem.

But by the time Visar Taril was twenty years of age, the planet was experiencing efficiency, order and discipline as it had never seen before. Taril's road to power was paved with the bodies of those he had trampled under him, his rise to power fuelled by the teachings of his former master. On Madrem, Taril learned the intricacies of chemistry and biology, and used his knowledge to create the Phobosia Toxin, a chemical able to induce violent hallucinations in those exposed. This was Visar's principle weapon in his campaigns of subjugation across Madrem, and so he became known as the Lord of Terror.

Dusk
Like all the Primarchs, Taril was snatched from the gene-labs of Terra and hurled through the warp, landing on the gang-ruled chemical world of Madrem. His pod was found by the leader of one of the largest gangs on Madrem: the Knives. When it became apparent that Taril was no ordinary child, the leader began training him in the ways of deception and ruthless command, intending for his progeny to take over when he died. Within a year, Taril had surpassed his former mentor, and was leading incredibly successful forays into enemy territory. His constant exposure to violence, bloodlust, and backstabbing made him an incredibly effective and brutal commander, his attacks known for their merciless nature. Visar soon came to see the value of fear as a weapon, when hostile gangs began surrendering to him rather than face him in battle. It was then that he decided to make fear his primary tool: for to break an enemy with the mere mention of his name was the truest victory he could think of.

Nightfall
Within barely half a decade, Visar's campaigns had fuelled the unification of Madrem under a single banner. Where once dozens of rival factions had struggled for control, now only Visar's clique remained in power. Now that Madrem had been somewhat liberated from its turmoil, if only to be thrown into a hellish rule of fear, Visar began to reform the government from a puppet-state into a functioning entity capable of running the planet for the first time in history.