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The sorcerer of Tzeentch is the unnamed main antagonist of "Warhammer 40,000: And They Shall Know No Fear," the 5th episode of the first season of the 2024 Amazon Prime animated anthology Secret Level, the episode being a sequel to the 2024 game Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2.
The sorcerer is a mutant sorcerer of the Chaos God Tzeentch, who guarded the chamber of a Chaos artifact in the form of a sculpted Lord of Change. Once human, the sorcerer was mutated in horrific ways, giving them extra limbs, skeletal wings, glowing blue blood, and an almost alien head with a giant central eye that opened into a mouth, usually folded up to appear eyeless.
The sorcerer was voiced by Alexa Kahn.
Biography[]
The sorcerer was a human follower of Tzeentch, who learned the ways of Warp-fueled sorcery from the Changer of Ways and had their body mutated into a monstrous form. At some point in the early 42nd millennium, the sorcerer resided on the bleak, wasteland-swept planet Zsah'Uj, a world overtaken by cultists of Tzeentch. As the planet became increasingly wrapped in Chaos energies, starting to alter natural laws, the sorcerer resided in an underground chamber that held a Chaos artifact- a statue of a Lord of Change, possibly a petrified Lord of Change in actuality. The sorcerer remained dormant in the chamber, held within the giant staff in the statue's hands.
The sorcerer casting their time freeze spell
The Imperium of Man, detecting the rising Chaos presence, deployed four Astartes of the Ultramarines to the planet, with the goal of locating and destroying the artifact, even though the mission was considered to be suicide. Regardless, four Ultramarines landed on Zsah'Uj- including Ultramarines hero Lieutenant Demetrian Titus, having previously triumphed over Thousand Sons Sorcerer Lord Imurah in the Recidious Campaign. Along with Titus were two Bladeguard Veterans and Bladeguard Sergeant Metaurus, who was the Ultramarine that chose Titus to ascend to an Astartes. After fighting through hordes of human cultists and Tzaangor daemons, the Ultramarines reached the chamber of the statue, where Titus opened up an armored coffin he had been dragging across the route. Within the coffin was a blind astropath, an Imperial psyker who began a prayer that created a shield before the Astartes. With the shield up, the four Space Marines began firing at the statue, the shield holding against Warp apparitions that retaliated. However, the damage sustained to the statue awoke the sorcerer, who flew down and cast a spell that froze the chamber in time, stopping any more shots from hitting their mark. The sorcerer then slew the astropath from behind with a throwing knife, cutting off the protective field over the Ultramarines. Just as the Astartes turned to fire on the sorcerer, the spell took hold over them, freezing them in place.
The sorcerer approaching Metaurus
With the Ultramarines frozen but still able to perceive, the sorcerer floated to the ground and folded up their wings with ther staff in hand, revealed an extra set of arms before hovering to the nearest Bladeguard Veteran, unfurling their facial veil to peer into the Space Marine's mind. There, the sorcerer latched onto an inner fear hidden deep in the Astarte's psyche- his own human frailty. As such, the sorcerer created an image of the Bladeguard Veteran's own power armor tearing his body out of it, his form emaciated, before the armor crushed the man's head in its fist. The marine's head in reality also crushed from the sorcerer's powers, blood seeping out of his helmet as his corpse unfroze and collapsed. The sorcerer repeated this infernal strategy with the next Bladeguard Veteran, latching onto one of his deep fears and killing him with it, while Metaurus and Titus could only watch from their frozen bodies. The sorcerer soon hovered to Metaurus, taunting him by gliding past his plasma bolt suspended in the air, before entering Metaurus' mind. Within, the sorcerer accessed Metaurus' deepest fear- that Titus, who he knew as a boy, a boy who never knew fear, would fall to Chaos. The sorcerer thus conjured an image of Titus as a young Aspirant, aging up to an Ultramarine, before becoming corrupted with symbols of Chaos. However, Metaurus, whose own mental apparition stood before the image of Chaos Marine Titus, resisted the vision with all he had. As such, the sorcerer was unable to kill Metaurus, but still used the false Titus to stab the image of Metaurus, incapacitating Metaurus' real body.
Titus cleaves the sorcerer in two
As Metaurus unfroze and fell, the sorcerer finally approached Titus, turning his head to face them before invading Titus' mind- but within, the sorcerer found no fear to latch on, instead only seeing an image of the Aspirant Titus trudging through a mental recreation of the Ultramarines Trial of Exposure, dragging a chainsword behind him. Confused, the sorcerer hovered by in their own mental projection, only for the Aspirant Titus to see the mutant in his mind. Instead of fleeing, Titus turned to the sorcerer, stepping forth and aging his image up to a Neophyte, then Firstborn Astartes, and finally, charged forth as a fully armored Primaris Marine, grabbing the sorcerer's staff and crushing it. With that, the sorcerer was immediately expelled from Titus' mind, their real-world staff breaking in their grasp, for Titus knew no fear. At once, the sorcerer's spell on the chamber was undone, time resuming and the Astartes' previously-fired rounds striking the statue. As the statue crumbled, the sorcerer tried to fly away, but Titus leapt into the air after them with his combat knife drawn, vertically bisecting the mutant heretic with a single slash, their halved body splattering to the ground. Titus soon left the chamber with Metaurus, sending its location to a battle barge that proceeded to destroy the statue's remains with an orbital strike.
Gallery[]
