Changes

Based on picts from his earlier conquests, recovered from Chaos soldiers captured in the early stages of the siege, Varan was a man of average build, wearing an austere military uniform with Chaos sigils on his coat and cap. His face was unremarkable, except for an two extravagant mustachemustaches. He spoke with a voice that was grating and somewhat whining in its timbre, and also made frequent use of theatrical hand gestures. Despite his less-than-intimidating appearance, Varan was also a powerful [[psyker]], who laced his seemingly uninspiring speeches with mental dominance to sway his audience to Chaos, including an [[Adepta Sororitas]] convent on the planet [[Madasa]], as well as members of the PDF of Madasa and Perlia.

Why Varan's force was dispatched to Perlia, while the majority of forces during the Black Crusade concentrated on the [[Cadian Gate]] and its surrounding systems, is not certain. It was speculated that Varan had discovered the existence of an artifact called the [[Shadowlight]], which could awaken latent psychic powers in humans. Varan may have pledged to recover it, in an attempt to curry favor with his dark master, [[Ezekyle Abaddon|Abaddon the Despoiler]].

Upon landing on Perlia and laying siege to the planetary capital of Havensdown, Varan assembled his prisoners, including Planetary Governor [[Lio Trevellyan]], into the scrumball stadium and began to speak, swaying the entire assemblage into swearing fealty to him with his powerful psychic influence. In a desperate gambit, Commissar [[Ciaphas Cain]], aiding in the defense of the planet, contacted Varan's forces and summoned him to the defense headquarters, based at the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] shrine at the Valley of Daemons, to discuss terms of surrender. But when Varan arrived, Cain (protected from Varan's psychic dominance by his [[blank]] aide, [[Ferik Jurgen]]) stated that he had summoned Varan so that the Warmaster would surrender to ''him''.

With his psychic talents rendered unexpectedly useless, and his mind-controlled Sororitas bodyguards temporarily disoriented by Jurgen's presence, Varan unleashed the other "gifts" received from his foul gods, including talons that protruded from his fingers and some form of sub-dermal [[carapace armour]]. Despite these, Varan was defeated in single combat with Cain, who kicked the Warmaster "self-styled invincible warlord" from the roof of the shrine to his death. The event was recorded via a servo-skull that Varan had brought along to record what he had thought was Cain's surrender to the forces of Chaos, further boosting Cain's already-legendary reputation as a Hero of the Imperium.