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a) Before he was Athalos, a Templar Apothecary, he was a human named Carter. Carter's father was a doctor and he was a thug. They started a stim-supply operation that landed them in the Savlar Chem-Dogs penal regiment.

b) The Chem-Dogs fought on Armageddon and their commander died terribly in an Ork crossfire. Carter led the squad in an improbable berserk charge that broke one side of the Orks forces and let Imperial reinforcements mop up the other.

c) After the battle, an Inquisitor pulls him and his father out of the regiment. She wants them to use their chemistry knowledge to figure out how to activate a Xeno bio-weapon to wipe out a Tau colony. They succeed, but also determine that the weapon will cause terrible biological damage to human settlers who repopulate the colony after.

d) He and his father argue with the Inquisitor not to use the weapon. The Inquisitor kills his father to force him to activate it, but doesn’t kill him because she views it as “squandering a potentially valuable asset to the Imperium.” She owes a favor to a Black Templar warden in a nearby chapter-monastery and ships him off to them to be recruited.

e) He succeeds, becomes a Black Templar, and fights in the Crusades long enough to request a transfer to the Deathwatch. He begins seeking out the Inquisitor who killed his father even whilst waging war against the enemies of the Imperium.

Picture of Athalos, Black Templar Apothecary

Some sons follow in their father’s footsteps to become doctors just like them. Other sons con their fathers into illegal stim-supply ops, get busted, and land them both in penal regiments on Armageddon. “Details, details,” that son would scoff as Ork flamethrowers and exploding Chimaeras choked the ash-filled hellscape around father and son.

Long, long before he was Athalos, Apothecary of the Black Templar Space Marines, that son was named Carter. Carter and his father Reynaud had just been hurled into an Arbites cell on Savlar before they were dragged to an Imperial shuttle. “Congratulations, scum, you’re going to fight Orks on Armageddon!” whooped a Guard commander who was far too enthusiastic about leaping headfirst into a Squiggoth’s maw. Probably because a few hundred thousand criminals could be a main course and he’d just be the toothpick.

“As of now, you’re Savlar Chem-Dogs. You’ll have a rebreather to put whatever the hell stims you boys kill your brain with these days and a lasgun to blow away every Ork feth-face you see! Heck, take whatever’s not nailed down on the battlefield after…. Just get in there, scream ‘For the Emperor!’, and send greenskins straight to Him!”

Their commander did scream “For the Emperor!” before his body showered the squad in red-misted gore. Yet, Carter’s squad wasn’t afraid when Lootaz cored their Chimaeras and caught them in a crossfire with Orks in an opposing trench in the wastes. Carter himself didn’t doubt as he took command of the squad and ordered them to dump all of their smoke grenades in front of the Orks so they could charge the opposing trench. The Savlar Chem-Dogs were furious from the aggression stims they popped before every fight… and Carter and his dad had cooked up the good stuff before this one.

Their berserk charge into the Ork trench would have done a Templar proud… and against all probability, it worked. In more lucid moments after, the Chem-Dogs said that the victory was partly from their impromptu sergeant’s uncompromising push to attack and never yield. It was also partly from that sergeant not getting his fool head blown off as he rushed down the length of the trench to pump it full of flame with an appropriated Ork Burna. Whatever the cause, Imperial reinforcements showed up to drive out the Lootaz, Carter received some shiny medals, and both he and his father were yanked off-world by order of the Inquisition.

His father Reynaud whispered caution and suspicion. Even though Carter was a hero of the moment, even though they knew how to fix the human body and how to muck it up with every chemical in the Imperium… it just didn’t make sense why Inquisitor Kylastis would choose scumbags from an expendable regiment to fill out her retinue. It made more sense when the elderly Inquisitor Kylastis commended on their courage, whispered that she needed their knowledge to save lives, and showed them the Xenos bio-weapon she intended to use on a Tau colony. She just needed them to show her how to turn it on.

“Fear the alien,” Carter heard in his thought and shivered across his arms as he studied the weapon. Over the days, he searched for the trigger sequence while Reynaud made a projection of what the biological and ecological effects would be expected after the weapon was used. The aged Inquisitor Kylastis calmly and warmly welcomed them into her office when they informed her they were successful. Before Carter could begin, Reynaud interrupted… the bio-weapon would kill every Tau on the planet and while leaving ecosystems mostly intact. However, the toxins would linger; human settlers to arrive on that world would suffer from burned lungs, ocular and aural damage, and genetic deformities for at least three generations. Inquisitor Kylastis nodded and said that this was acceptable. Carter leapt in with every argument he could imagine to convince her that in no fething way was this acceptable!

“Sure, my father and I have wrecked a few immune systems in our time,” Carter started. “Those people chose that for themselves, though. Their lives may have even been better off for it; we may have provided better quality of life in this gorram universe of ours. It’s different for those colonists, though… I know how this works and there’s no fething way that the Administratum will tell those colonists what’s going to happen to them and their children when they start living on this world. I like you, Inquisitor, but if we use fething Xenos tech to take this planet then we’re failing Imperium and its people.”

Reynaud looked proudly at his son. The aged Inquisitor's head bobbed as she stated, “Thank you for your honest appraisal.” Her bolt pistol blew Reynaud’s head into so many chunks and gobbets before she turned it back towards Carter. “Now activate that weapon.”

Carter seethed as he input the activation sequence for the bio-weapon… and there was purpose in that rage. He saw that the Inquisitor’s bolt pistol had been holstered the entire time she’d walked with him back the launch bay, the softening of her posture. He would not die today and that would give him the opportunity to have his vengeance. As the shuttle arrived, Carter couldn’t keep his mouth and shut and blurted out, “Why am I not dead?”

The Inquisitor sighed in her grandmotherly way, then chuckled. “Don’t flatter yourself. I owe a favor to the Black Templars warden in the fortress-monastery on Sepulchre IV. That charge you pulled off on Armageddon makes me think you’d be a good fit for them. I don’t believe that luck or the Emperor’s favor makes men triumph. I believe a man’s skills and willpower are what elevates him and yours have proven valuable to the Imperium. If you survive the selection, you’ll be an asset to the Templars… and I hate throwing away assets before they’re provided their full value.”

They both smiled and nodded as Carter swore he’d kill that Inquisitor. Even if he became a Space Marine, even if he fought in crusades and defended the Imperium, he would find a way to rejoin the Inquisition. He would find Inquisitor Kylastis and kill her in his father’s memory. Becoming an Astartes means leaving much of one’s humanity behind, but the drive for vengeance remains.

Carter was anointed as Athalos, Templar knight, and his hatred stayed pure.