Marion as a highly intelligent child, with a love of learning. He was also very emotional, enjoying his routines, becoming highly attached to certain things, and disliking changes. This lead him to have a generally conservative outlook on life. He could have been anything, done anything, but instead decided to settle down in the town he grew up in, marrying a girl who he had gone to school with, and becoming a teacher of history, the subject that he loved the most. At some point in his youth, Marion started to realize that he had certain unusual psychic abilities, though he mostly kept the suppressed - only occasionally getting glimpses into the future or seeming to recover unusually quickly from injuries. For the most part, Marion used his exceptional abilities to keep his life as ordinary as possible.
Everything changed when the world was plunged into a terrible world war. Men of all ages were drafted and Marion was no different, he was sent to war. Marion hated combat, he hated death and losing his friends on the battlefield. He trained to become a field medic and each time a friend died in his arms, he died a little too. He was an excellent soldier though, known for his great bravery, physical prowess, and cunning. He saved man lives and earned many awards, putting himself in the line of fire again and again to rescue the dead and dying. As the war lagged on he was noticing himself changing, becoming more powerful. His psychic abilities were becoming so potent he could barely suppress them any longer, the psychic energy flowed through his body with such potence that he was vastly stronger than any other human on Barbarus.
As the war raged on, fighting became more ferocious, chemical weapons were used, then nuclear, and finally biological. The conflict turned from world war to mutually assured destruction. Billions died in clouds of deadly chemical fog or radioactive fallout. Those who survived later died in the super viruses were released. Marion for some inexplicable reason did not die, his supernaturals enhanced constitution allowed him to survive all of the hazards while all others died around him. Though his body was still ravaged, he was covered with boils and sores, hus skin as pale as death. As others died, Marion put his great intellect in helping researchers find a cure for the viruses, cursing himself that he never studied more before. His work was too little and too late, the virus mutated too quickly and his fellow researchers perished, leaving him alone.
With his fellow soldiers dead, Marion returned to his home to find his wife and remaining family dying from the engineered plagues that swept the world. Marion did what he could, but his wife died in his arms, leaving him alone on a dead planet. His scream of anguish sent out a psychic beacon through the Warp, heard by Magnus who alerted the Emperor to the lotion of another Primarch. By the time the Emperor made his way to Barbarus, the planet was dead, with an atmosphere full of toxic chemicals, ghost cities, and forests of withered trees. Here, Marion had lived all alone surrounded by the corpses of his loved ones for the past several years, one lone man on a planet of the dead. When the Emperor found him, Marion was speaking to his dead friends and family, hearing their voices in his head and speaking back with them.
The Emperor took Marion with him, taking to use his powers to ease Marion's insanity. After a while, with human contact, Marion began to become sane enough to be trusted. Eventually, Marion was given the command of a legion of soldiers and ordered to conquer the galaxy in the name of the Emperor. Marion was an overly conservative general, favoring caution and defense, making sure that the men under him were heavily armored and well supplies. This earned him the enmity of Emperor who thought Marion to be a coward, though unearned him the respect of his men, who knew how much Marion valued their lives.
Unknown to the Emperor or other Primarchs, Marion still heard the voices of his loved ones talking to him, especially his wife. There were knew voices as well, members of his legion who had lost their lives under his command and other voices as well, strange and alien to him. On one lonely night after a particularly vicious battle where he had lost many comrades, he stopped trying to block out the voices, stopped trying to convince himself that he was mad, he listened to them and they all spoke together as one, telling him that he must return to Barbarus. He heeded the council of his fallen friends and returned to Barbarus, leaving the Great Crusade despite the orders of the Emperor.
When Marion returned, a strange new voice spoke to him, telling him that he could conquer death itself, that he only needed to unleash his power. Marion listened and went to the place where his wife's body lay. He focused on her body, hearing her voice speaking to him, begging to live again, his will was not strong enough alone and he called on the alien voice her help, the voice said for Marion's love of his wife and for Father Nurgle's love of Marion, his son, he would give his power to him. With that, Marion felt the power of Nurgle flow through him, and he brought forth the soul of his wife and inserted her into her rotten corpse. She came back to life, her body partially restored though still pale and dead, her mind and soul we returned and they embraced in loving union that Marion had dreamed of for years. After the embrace, Marion fell to his knees and gave praise to Nurgle for giving him his wife back. Nurgle spoke once more, saying that this was only the begging and that the souls of his other companions waited for him aid as well. With this, Marion concentrated, focusing all of his power and that Nurgle had given him, wrenching souls out of the Warp and and putting them back into the forms that once lived.
The entire planet came alive again, in sense anyway. Rotten animals rose out if the ground, dead mortals pried their way out of their graves, blood red leaves grew on the bare dead trees, the planet of the dead had become a planet of undeath. Marion collapsed, exhausted, on the ground, but was soon joined by many of friends and family, their love and moony it the great effort worth it. Across the galaxy, the Emperor felt a great evil happen, the Warp flowing into the material universe and despoiling an entire world. He sent Roboute Guilliman to investigate Barbarus, knowing that Marion had done something terrible. Guilliman had never liked or trusted Marion and he was eager to put an end to any foulness that Marion had unleashed.
When Guilliman arrived at Barbarus, Guilliman was still weak from his great act of awakening the dead, Guilliman fell on him in a fury and killed him with his power sword. As Marion lay dying, Guilliman began to destroy the undead abominations that Marion had created. As life seeped from Marion, he felt his loved ones being threatened, he felt a burst of renewed vigor and through his will forced his soul back into his dead body, animating it as he had the rest of the dead of Barbarus. He rose of, blood pouring from his obviously lethal wound and attacked Guilliman with greater strengths and ferocity than he ever had in his living days. Guilliman, shocked by what Marion had become, fled the planet to report back to the Emperor, saying that Marion was no longer human and must be destroyed.
Marion had saved his family, had saved his entire planet, but he knew that it would not last long. He knew that in time, the Emperor would come back to destroy both Marion and loved ones he had brought back. He had his legion send out a message to the Emperor, saying that all he wanted was peace and that if he was left alone to have Barbarus as his own, he would leave everyone else alone, he would even serve the Emperor faithfully if his wife and planet were spared. The Emperor did not reply, it was Horus the Warmaster who replied to Marion. saying that the Emperor wished to see Marion destroyed but because of Horus' concern for Marion, he would stand beside him and protect Marion and his planet, though Marion must likewise stand with him when the time came. Marion took Horus' offer, allying with him against the Emperor.
In time, Marion began calling himself Mortarian, the Death Lord, though he knew that in truth he was the enemy of death, not its lord. As he mastered his powers, he learned that he had saved the souls of his loved ones as they died in his presence, protecting them form the ravages of the Warp and making it possible to bring them back with minds intact. For others who died outside of his presence, he had more trouble bringing them back, and they often had strange quirks or degraded minds or personalities. He also turned his entire legion into the same undead creatures as he himself was, taking their souls and placing them back into the bodies of his followers. This gave them great strength and resilience, though as the power of Nurgle worked upon the bodies of those he brought back, they became more horrible in appearance - but Mortarian didn't care, he loved them anyway and had found out how to protect them forever.
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