"I am Canto the Unsworn. I serve no god save ambition, no master save necessity. Follow me or you will be served thus."
- —Canto, after decapitating a Champion of Khorne.[1a]
Canto the Unsworn was a Warrior of Chaos Undivided.
Canto the Unsworn is an ancient, yet little-known Chaos Champion, who would by his own actions save the world from the enslavement of Chaos many centuries before the beginning of the End Times.
History[]
"I never wanted this burden. It just came on me. I’m only a man...I’ve only ever been a man. A wicked, evil man, who has done wicked, evil things. But I was never a monster. Never that."
- —Canto the Unsworn.
Canto was, unlike many Champions before him, still a man who was true to only himself and kept with him throughout his journey a flicker of his own humanity. In his beginnings, Canto was an Imperial living within the city-state of Nuln during the onset of the Great War against Chaos.[1][2]
In that time, Canto had made a choice, a decision from which he had to choose a side within a conflict that might either reward him with survival or death. All Canto had to do, was to betray and kill a long-known acquaintance of his, a good friend. In that final moment, Canto could not bear to go through with it and he faltered, never knowing that his decision had inadvertently saved the Empire, and that of the World from imminent destruction, for the friend he did not kill was none other than Magnus the Pious.[2]
That decision had since plagued Canto's destiny for years after the wars end. He chose the wrong side and had lost. Not only has he failed at his mission that the Dark Gods had given him, but now he could never return to the life he previously had. Forced into exile, Canto was ever a survivalist amongst the many Warriors that dominate the Northern Waste. Canto knew that to seek patronage from a particular God would only lead to his death, and so he'd made sure to evade the eyes of the Gods for as long as he possibly could. He would wear no symbol of allegiance, his armor was large, powerful yet bare and featureless. His appearance and deeds had since given him the well-known title as the "Unsworn".[1]
Canto during his life as a Chaos Champion had fought for many Warlords in the past, such as the legendary Khornate Champion, Garmr the Gorewolf, or the Tzeentchian Sorcerer, Tzerpichore the Unwritten.[1] Yet he had always survived the bloodshed, the victories and defeats, for Canto is as cunning a creature as he is an exceptional warrior. During the final days of the End Times, when the Auric Bastion at last fell, opening the way to the Empire for the Norse and Kurgan, Canto fell in with a band of Khornate Chaos Warriors known as Halfgir's Headsmen, and participated in Archaon's Assault on Middenheim. After the city fell, Canto found himself under the gaze of yet another powerful Chaos Lord, that being the Everchosen himself.[2]
Archaon and Canto conferred with each other during the closing days of the War, discussing their own philosophies as Champions of Chaos. The two were a study of opposites, the Unsworn having chosen to avoid the gaze of the Dark Gods to preserve his own life and identity, where the Everchosen had embraced their patronage so as to destroy all creation, in the hopes that a world might one day rise where gods no longer played games with the destinies of men. As before, the Unsworn found himself thrust into a choice - whether to save the world from destruction, or to push it headlong into its fate. As before, he chose the former, and attempted to slay the Everchosen. Canto proved no much for Archaon, and was swiftly cut down, with some regret. The Unsworn then died, content with the knowledge that he would at least not have to witness the terrible end.[2]