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The Possessed, also called Daemonkin or "the Secondborn", are Chaos Space Marines who have given up their humanity and surrendered their souls and bodies to a daemon. The warriors prepare for possession through rituals of debasement and scarification and blood sacrifice, opening their bodies to a daemonic entity.
Once a daemon takes hold, the body is transformed. Bones twist into blades and claws, armour fuses with flesh, and mouths and tentacles sprout across the warrior's form. Possessed are terrifying in close combat and often care little for their own survival.
For some followers of Chaos, giving their souls is not enough, so they offer their bodies as well. A daemon is invited into the warrior's flesh and slowly takes it over, reshaping it to suit its own nature. The process is long and agonising, and the host's personality is swallowed for good. Even so, a mass possession is treated as a great celebration. Warbands such as the Crimson Slaughter, the Fire Reavers and the Invocators regard their Possessed as the most blessed warriors they have.
The first Possessed Space Marines came from the Word Bearers. During Lorgar's search for the truth of the gods, the Serrated Sun Chapter was led into the Eye of Terror. Its survivors returned joined with daemons and became the Gal Vorbak, the "Blessed Sons". Dark Apostles still preach of them as unholy saints.
The Possessed belong to a tradition that began with the Word Bearers. After Lorgar was rebuked and humiliated at Khur, Kor Phaeron and Erebus steered him toward the Old Faith, and on his pilgrimage to the Cadia System he learned that the gods behind humanity's religions were real. From that point, daemonic possession became a weapon of the Traitor Legions. A daemon in a human host might terrorise a city, but a Chaos Space Marine body lets it endure indefinitely outside the Warp as a transhuman killer.
Appearance & wargear
Possessed are mutated Chaos Space Marines with power armour fused to their flesh, horns, tentacles, claws and fanged mouths, often in shapes unique to each warrior.
No two Possessed look alike. They grow claws, tentacles, wings, extra mouths and eyes, horned skulls and bladed limbs that burst from the armour, which itself fuses with mutated flesh. In battle some seem to flicker in and out of reality or change shape mid-stride, running like beasts before rising up to strike.
Weapons & Vehicles
An oversized servo-assisted armoured gauntlet sheathed in a matter-shredding energy field, capable of tearing open tank hulls and crush…
The brutal motorised tooth-bladed sword carried by Space Marines, Imperial Guard officers and Chaos renegades, chewing through armour a…
The screaming, blood-drenched motorised war-axe of the World Eaters and Khorne Berzerkers, trading all defensive finesse for bone-shatt…
The corroded, pus-dripping combat blades of the Death Guard Plague Marines, so saturated with Nurgle's supernatural contagions that a s…
Chaos Space Marines infected by a daemonic technovirus that fuses flesh, armour and weapons into a single shapeshifting mass.
Explore all 48 entries in the Weapons & Vehicles armoury.
Battlefield role & tactics
Possessed are close-combat shock troops who tear into the enemy with mutated claws and blades.
Possessed are shock troops. They cannot be trusted with guns, so they fight with their mutations alone. They feel no pain, and they see the material world and the Warp at once: they can sense fear and despair in their prey, which makes them superb hunters. Their price is control. The daemon within cares nothing for the warband's plan, so commanders point them at the enemy and let them go.
Possessed are fast, mutating melee troops whose gifts vary. They are used to tear through infantry and light vehicles. They have no ranged weapons and are vulnerable to anti-daemon weapons and psychic attacks.
Munitorum & Ordo Xenos Technical Dossier
Classified under Ordo and Departmento Munitorum threat-index protocols as a primary Possessed are close-combat shock troops who tear into the enemy with mutated claws and blades. asset of Heretic Astartes (Chaos Space Marines), Possessed relies on a tightly coupled symbiosis between operator conditioning and primary armament. Field maintenance and biological recovery logs indicate that extended deployment without liturgical recalibration or bio-stasis rest degrades targeting and metabolic stability by less than 4% per solar week—far outperforming standard sector baselines—while post-engagement recovery teams prioritize the immediate extraction of their core wargear, neural/gene-seed components, or machine-spirit memory cores before enemy scavengers can exploit them.
Notable battles & users
- Black Crusades: Possessed fight in the vanguard of many Chaos assaults.
- Gal Vorbak: the Word Bearers' Blessed Sons, survivors of the Serrated Sun Chapter, who fought in the Horus Heresy as the first possessed Astartes.
- Crimson Slaughter: a renegade warband haunted by the voices of their victims. Many of its warriors embraced possession.
Related
No profiled character is closely tied to this unit type yet.
