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Fabius Bile is a renegade Apothecary and geneticist who left the Emperor's Children to pursue his own dream of a new humanity. Warlords on all sides use and hate him.
He carries the Chirurgeon, a spider-like surgical frame grafted to his back, and the Rod of Torment. He sells his services and his enhanced warriors to warlords across the Eye of Terror. His creations range from monstrous Chaos Spawn to his 'New Men', the superior human species he hopes will replace the old. Fabius Bile was Chief Apothecary of the Emperor's Children. He is now the "Clone Lord", the "Primogenitor" and the "Manflayer", a renegade geneticist who has spent ten thousand years trying to create new and better beings. He sells his skills to Chaos warlords in return for materials and test subjects. Many sources say he has sought gene-seed from loyal Space Marines and even a primarch's tissue.
Origins
He was born into a minor noble house in northern Europa during the Unification Wars and joined the III Legion before Fulgrim was found.
As an Apothecary of the Emperor's Children, he tried to cure the gene-seed defect that crippled his Legion's ranks in its early years. That work introduced him to radical experiments, and the Heresy gave him freedom to push them further. He later abandoned his Legion and turned his laboratories to his own ambitions.
Black Library novels add a strange early history. Fabius grew up among Europan aristocrats, partly in a region called Ingolstadt, and learned fleshcrafting from one of his family's servants. One of his first experiments was dressing modified mice in elaborate costumes to duel. He was inconsolable when they ignored his orders and killed each other. In the Legion he was the only member of the original command among the Two Hundred who survived the Blight, an organ-wasting plague caused by a Selenite plot. His brothers nicknamed him the Spider. During the Heresy, Fulgrim had him clone Ferrus Manus. Each clone was offered Fulgrim's cause, refused and was killed.
Key events
- Tried to cure the gene-seed blight that afflicted the Emperor's Children.
- Distanced himself from his brothers' devotion to Slaanesh during the Heresy and continued his experiments.
- Cloned Horus in the Eye of Terror; the clone was destroyed by Abaddon.
- Led the Consortium of renegade Apothecaries.
- Sells his gene-crafting to warlords of all sides, including Black Crusades.
In the last weeks of the Siege of Terra, his bunker laboratory decaying around him, he concluded that the Traitor Legions' cause was pointless and left before Horus died. Fulgrim put a price on his head. Background material says Vulkan's Salamanders later caught him on Arden IX, where he was trading his services to the renegade Lord Tyrell for foetal material. His flesh refineries burned in a single night, he killed a dozen Space Marines and he barely escaped into the Eye of Terror on a crippled ship. In the Legion Wars he took Horus' corpse from Maleum and grew a clone at Canticle City on Harmony, until the newborn Black Legion destroyed the city and Abaddon killed the clone.
Josh Reynolds' Fabius Bile novels describe his later deals. On the Necron world Solemnace he traded a maturing Fulgrim clone, and the Emperor's Children who had come to collect it, to Trazyn in return for a lost gene-tithe big enough to make nearly 18,000 legionaries. He studied with Haemonculus Hexachires in Commorragh, then escaped by starting a war between two Kabals. When the vengeful Coven of the Thirteen Scars cornered him, he pledged his soul to Fulgrim and Slaanesh to save his New Men. His original self now sleeps in a Webway casket while about a dozen autonomous clones carry on his work. His worshipping creations are slowly giving rise to a minor god, the Pater Mutatis.
Battles & campaigns
- Horus Heresy: He served as Chief Apothecary of the Emperor's Children.
- Dimmamar: He forced a world to take his serums or suffocate.
- The Horus clones: He tried to clone the Warmaster before Abaddon destroyed his work.
Personality
Coldly brilliant and amoral, driven by a vision of a superior humanity.
He is cold, curious and largely indifferent to the suffering his experiments cause. He does not worship the Chaos Gods and resents their interference with his work. His contempt for both the Imperium and the traitors is matched only by his belief that he alone can build humanity's future.
Weapons & Vehicles
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Chaos Space Marines who have surrendered their bodies to daemons, twisting into horrific mutated killers.
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Explore all 48 entries in the Weapons & Vehicles armoury.
Connections
Characters (3)
Horus Lupercal cloned by · Black LegionFabius Bile created a clone of Horus in the Eye of Terror, which Abaddon destroyed.
Lucius the Eternal brother legionary · Emperor's ChildrenBoth are veterans of the Emperor's Children.
Factions
- Emperor's Children primary faction
Related units (4)
Some links are thematic parallels (marked "parallel") rather than recorded meetings. See the connections web.
Legacy
Fabius Bile is the genetic experimenter whose work on Space Marine gene-seed has made him infamous. Abaddon tolerates him for his skills. His ambition to create a new race, the 'New Men', makes him an unusual figure who cares nothing for the Chaos Gods. His experiments make him useful to warlords on every side, and his indifference to the Chaos Gods marks him as one of the setting's most singular villains. Bile is Chaos's mad scientist, and every world he visits is a laboratory.
His recent raids include Cawl's flagship Zar-Quaesitor, where he took the progenoid glands of Alpha Primus, the first Primaris Marine, and Restitution, the homeworld of the Gilded Sons. James Swallow said at the 2012 Black Library Weekender that he had asked to kill Fabius at the end of Black Tide and was refused.
Appearances & sources
- Codex: Chaos Space Marines background
- Fabius Bile: Primogenitor and Clonelord (Josh Reynolds)
- Fulgrim (Graham McNeill)