Traitor Blood Angels and the Black Rage?
So, just as the title of the post states, I’m a bit confused as to what the relations is between Blood Angels or Blood Angel-Successors who fall to Chaos and the curse of the Black Rage. Is this flaw in their gene-seed still present, or is it twisted even further by Chaos?
Verngar in *Master of the Maelstrom* is a former Angel Encarmine who argued that their “gifts” were, in fact, no gifts at all but rather the touch of chaos, and was sent away on an eternal penitent crusade for it. You would think, with the warp constantly in his ear and all and no chaplaincy to speak of, he’d become a frothing monster in no time, yet he’s actually one of Huron’s most competent lieutenants. In fact, any traitor Blood Angels seen throughout the lore - in their rare instances - are never mentioned as having fully succumbed to the Black Rage, but rather leaned into the Red Thirst with their inherent rage lending them strength (*Angron* novel and several Khorne short stories).
Now, remember, it has been explicitly stated that *every* loyalist legion had traitor elements during the Heresy. This includes the Blood Angels, whom I am either remembering or suspecting were old guard or isolated expeditionary fleet companies that never fully forgot their roots in the old Revenant Legion pre-Sanguinius. At the moment of their Primarch’s death, were they devolved into raving lunatics that killed friend and foe alike? Or were they “spared” by their newfound patron deities, later to form their own warbands or be absorbed by the likes of the Black Legion or converted into adopted sons of Lorgar?