"There is a terrible darkness descending upon the galaxy, and we shall not see it ended in our lifetimes."

— Inquisitor Bronislaw Czevak at the Conclave of Har

The Necrons are a mysterious xenos species of humanoid, robotic skeletal warriors that have lain dormant in their stasis-tombs for more than 60 million Terran years, though they have begun to awaken at last. They are the soulless creations and former servants of the ancient C'tan, the terrible Star Gods of Aeldari myth.

The Necrons are ancient beyond reckoning, predating even the birth of the Aeldari. At long last, however, they are beginning to awaken from their Tomb Worlds, for the galaxy is ripe for conquest and the restoration of the Necron Empire since the disappearance of the Old Ones more than 60 million standard years ago.

The Necrons are a completely robotic humanoid species whose technological prowess is probably unmatched by any of the other intelligent species of the galaxy.

Yet out of a desire for vengeance against the more fortunate long-lived, ancient xenos people called the Old Ones, and the trickery of the godlike intelligences known as the C'tan, the Necrons shed their original organic forms and lost all forms of compassion and empathy.

They have become instead ruthless, undying killing machines who are determined to exert their mastery over the galaxy once more.

Across the galaxy, an ancient and terrible species is stirring back to life. Entombed in stasis-crypts for millions of Terran years, they have slumbered through the aeons, waiting for the galaxy to heal from the wounds of a long and bloody war.

Now, after sixty million years of dormancy, a great purpose begins. On desolate worlds thought long-bereft of all life, ancient machineries wake into grim purpose, commencing the slow process of revivification that will see those entombed within freed to stride across the stars once again. The unstoppable, undying Necron legions are rising. Let the galaxy beware.

All Necrons, from the lowliest of warriors to the most regal of lords, are driven by one ultimate goal, to restore their ancient ruling dynasties to glory and to bring the galaxy under their rule once more, as it was in ancient days.

Such was the edict long ago encoded into the Necrons' minds, and it is a command so fundamental to their being that it cannot be denied. Yet it is no small task, for the Necrons are awakening from their Tomb Worlds to find the galaxy of the late 41st Millennium as recorded by the Imperial Calendar much changed.

Many Tomb Worlds are no more, destroyed by cosmic disaster or alien invasion. Others are damaged, their entombed legions afflicted by slow madness or worn to dust by entropy's irresistible onset.

Degenerate alien species squat amongst the ruins of those Necron Tomb Worlds that remain, little aware of the greatness they defile with their upstart presence. Yet there is no salvation to be found in such ignorance. The undying have come to reclaim their lands, and the living shall be swept aside.

Yet if billions of Necrons have been destroyed by the passage of eternity, countless billions more remain to see their dominion reborn. They are not creatures of flesh and blood, these Necrons, but android warriors whose immortal forms are forged from living metal. As such, they are almost impervious to destruction, and their mechanical bodies are swift to heal even the gravest wounds.

Given time, severed limbs reattach, armour plating reknits and shattered mechanical organs are rebuilt. The only way, then, to assure a Necron's destruction is to overwhelm its ability to self-repair, to inflict such massive damage that its ancient regenerative systems cannot keep pace.

Even then, should irreparable damage occur, the Necron will often simply "phase out" -- an automated viridian teleportation beam returning it to the safety of the stasis-crypts, where it remains in storage until such time as repairs can be carried out.

The sciences by which such feats are achieved remain a mystery to outsiders, for the Necrons do not share their secrets with lesser species and have set contingencies to prevent their supreme technologies from falling into the wrong hands. Should a fallen Necron warrior fail to phase out, it self-destructs and is consumed in a blaze of emerald light.

Outwardly, this appears little different to the glow of teleportation, leaving the foe to wonder whether the Necron has finally been destroyed or has merely retreated to its tomb. Victory over the Necrons is therefore always a tenuous thing, and a hard-won battle grants little surety of ultimate victory.

For the Necrons, defeats are minor inconveniences -- the preludes to future triumphs, nothing more. Immortality has brought patience; the perils that the Necrons survived in ancient times carry the lesson their people can overcome any opposition, if they have but the will to try. And if the Necrons possess only a single trait, it is a will as unbending as adamantium.

Only one hope can now preserve the other intelligent species of the galaxy from the Necrons' advance, from the endless legions of silent and deathless warriors rising from long-forgotten tombs. If the Necrons can be prevented from waking to their full glory, if the scattered Tomb Worlds can be prevented from unifying, then there is a chance of survival.

If not, then the great powers of the galaxy will surely fall, and the Necrons shall rule supreme for all eternity -- undying, cruel and utterly implacable.

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History

The Old Ones

Just as the stars gave birth to their children so the planets of the newborn galaxy eventually gave birth to lifeforms composed of matter which began the long evolutionary climb to self-awareness. The first sentient beings of the Milky Way Galaxy known to have developed a civilisation technologically advanced enough to cross the stars was a reptilian race of beings called the Old Ones by the Aeldari, who knew them best. They possessed a slow, cold-blooded, but deep wisdom; having long studied the stars and raised astronomy and physics to such a level that their science and technology would appear to humanity like an arcane art.

Their understanding of the workings of the universe were such that they could manipulate alternate dimensions and undertake great works of psychic engineering. Their science allowed them to cross the vast gulfs of space with only a single step via the myriad of Warp Gates they had built to connect the worlds of the galaxy in a vast network, much like the Aeldari Webway of today; though on a much larger scale.

The Old Ones had spread their spawn to many places in the galaxy, but they also knew that all life was precious. Where they passed, they seeded new intelligent species and reshaped thousands of worlds to make them their own according to their predetermined environmental and geographic criteria. It is believed by some in the Adeptus Mechanicus that even Terra felt the Old Ones' touch long before humanity's rise to self-awareness, though this notion is considered heretical at best by the Ecclesiarchy, as the Imperial Creed teaches that Mankind was made in the image of the God-Emperor before His spirit was incarnated in physical flesh millennia ago.

The Old Ones' civilisation reached its height in excess of 60 million years ago. The Old Ones were responsible for the creation or genetic advancement of most of the currently active intelligent species of the galaxy, including the Eldar, the Krork (the Orks' precursors), the Slann and the Jokaero, though it is unknown if they played any role in the evolution of humanity. The Old Ones were potent psychics who routinely used the powers of the Warp for a wide variety of technological applications, and had constructed a system of instantaneous faster-than-light portals through Warpspace that were ultimately adapted to create the Eldar's Webway (and was its more advanced precursor). These portals connected all of the Old Ones' colony worlds across vast swathes of interstellar space.

Birth of the Star Gods

The birth of the entities known as the Star Gods occurred at the same time as the moment of Creation itself, as they formed from the vast, insensate energies first unleashed by that churning mass of cataclysmic force. In that anarchic interweaving of matter and energy, the sea of stars began to swirl into existence and for an eon the universe was nothing more than hot hydrogen gas and light elemental dust ruled over by the gravitic force of billions of newborn suns.

Long before the first planets had formed and cooled, the very first truly self-aware beings emerged, their thoughts encased within the lines of force produced by the plasma and electromagnetic flares of the stars themselves. In later times, these entities would become known as the C'tan, but early in their existence they were nothing like the malevolent beings they would eventually become.

They were little more than monstrous energy parasites that suckled upon the solar energies of the stars that had brought them into existence, shortening the lives of otherwise main-sequence stars by millions of standard years. In time, these star vampires learned to move on the diaphanous wings of the universe's electromagnetic flux, leaving their birthplaces to drift through the cosmic ether to new stellar feeding grounds and begin their cycle of stellar destruction once more.

Beings of pure energy, they paid no mind to the hunks of solid matter they passed in the vacuum of space, the blazing geothermal fires and weak geomagnetic fields of these nascent planets insufficient to be worth feeding even their ravenous hunger.

The Necrontyr and the Wars of Secession

The humanoid species that would become the Necrons began their existence under a fearsome, scourging star in the far reaches of the galaxy known as the Halo Stars region, billions of standard years before Mankind evolved on Terra. Assailed at every moment by ionising solar winds and intense radiation storms, the flesh and blood Necrontyr became a morbid people whose precarious life spans were riven by constant loss.

What little information the Imperium of Man has recovered on the Necrontyr tells that their lives were short and uncertain, their bodies blighted and consumed at an early age by the terrible cancers and other illnesses linked to the high levels of ionising radiation given off by their sun. Necrontyr cities were built in anticipation of their inhabitants' early demise, as the living were only brief residents living in the shadow of the vast sepulchres and tombs of their ancestors.

Likewise, their ruling dynasties were founded on the anticipation of demise, and the living were thought of as no more than temporary residents hurrying through the more permanent and lasting structures raised to honour the dead. On the Necrontyr homeworld, the greatest monuments were always built for the dead, never the living. Driven by necessity, the Necrontyr escaped their crucible-prison and struck out for the stars, hopeful of carving an empire in which they could realise their species' potential free from the lethal energies of their birth star.

Unable to find peace on their own world, the Necrontyr blindly groped outward into the universe to explore other stars. Using stasis crypts and slow-moving, antimatter-powered torch-ships, the Necrontyr began to colonise distant worlds. Little by little, the Necrontyr dynasties spread ever further, until much of the ancient galaxy answered to their rule.

From the earliest days, the rulers of individual Necrontyr dynasties were themselves governed by the Triarch, a council composed of three Phaerons. The head of the Triarch was known as the Silent King, for he addressed his subjects only through the other two Phaerons who ruled alongside him. Nominally a hereditary position, the uncertain life spans of the Necrontyr ensured that the title of Silent King nonetheless passed from one royal dynasty to another many times. The final days of the Necrontyr Empire occurred in the reign of Szarekh, the last of the Silent Kings.

Sometime during their slow expansion, the Necrontyr encountered an ancient intelligent species far older than any other in existence in the known galaxy. Collectively, these beings were known as the Old Ones, and they were absolute masters of forms of energy the Necrontyr could not even conceive of, yet alone wield. The Old Ones had long ago conquered the secrets of immortality, yet they refused to share the gift of eternal life with the Necrontyr, who yet bore the curse of the bitter star they had been born under.

The colonisation of much of the galaxy by the reptilian mystics had been immeasurably swifter and more expansive than that of the Necrontyr because of their Warp Gates and mastery of the Immaterium. That, and the Old Ones' incredibly long, if not downright immortal lifespans, kindled a burning, jealous rage in the Necrontyr, which ate at their culture spiritually as much as their physical cancers consumed their bodies. The Necrontyr were astonished to learn that another intelligent species enjoyed such long lives while their own were cut so brutally short.

But as time wore on, further strife came to the Necrontyr. Each dynasty of the Necrontyr sought to claim its own destiny and soon the great houses were engaged in all-out conflicts known as the "Wars of Secession." Had circumstances remained as they were for but a generation more, it is possible that the Necrontyr would have wiped themselves out, as so many species had before them and shall do in the future.

As their territory grew ever wider and more diverse, the unity that had made them strong was eroded, and bitter wars were waged as entire realms fought to win independence. Ultimately, the Triach -- the ruling council of the Necrontyr Empire-- realised that the only hope of unity lay in conflict with an external enemy, but there were few who could prove a credible threat. Only the Old Ones, the first of all the galaxy's known sentient species, were a prospective foe powerful enough to bind the feuding Necrontyr dynasties to a common cause.

Such a war was simplicity itself to justify, for the Necrontyr had ever rankled at the Old Ones' refusal to share the secrets of eternal life. So did the Triarch declare war on the Old Ones. At the same time, they offered amnesty to any secessionist dynasties who willingly returned to the fold. Thus lured by the spoils of victory and the promise of immortality, the separatist Necrontyr realms abandoned their Wars of Secession and the War in Heaven began.

It was the last of the Silent Kings who headed the Triarch of the Necrontyr Empire, Szarekh, who formulated the plan that would change everything forever and have consequences that would echo through history for countless millions of years. In a typically bitter act of jealousy and resentment for the Necrontyr race, it was the Silent King who used the Old Ones' refusal to share the secret of immortality as a pretext for war, forcibly uniting the entire Necrontyr species beneath the rule of the Triarch against their common foe. War erupted across the stars, yet while the Silent King succeeded in uniting his hateful people, it was a war the Necrontyr could not win. Not on their own.

The War in Heaven

The terrible wars between the Old Ones and the Necrontyr that followed, known later in Aeldari myth as the War in Heaven, would fill a library in their own right, but the Necrontyr could never win. Their superior technology was consistently outmanoeuvred by the Old Ones thanks to their mastery of the Webway portals and Warp Gates. The Necrontyr were pushed back until they were little more than an irritation to the Old Ones' dominance of the galaxy, a quiescent threat clinging to their irradiated world among the Halo Stars, exiled and forgotten.

The Necrontyr's fury was cooled by their long millennia of imprisonment on their homeworld, slowly transforming into an utter hatred towards all other forms of intelligent life and an implacable determination to avenge themselves upon their seemingly invincible enemies.

But in the face of defeat, the always fragile unity of the Necrontyr began to fracture once more. No longer did the prospect of a common enemy have any hold over the disparate dynasties. Scores of generations had now lived and died in the service of an unwinnable war, and many Necrontyr dynasties would have gladly sued for peace with the Old Ones if the ruling Triarch had permitted it.

Thus began the second iteration of the Wars of Secession, more widespread and ruinous than any that had come before. So fractured has the Necrontyr dynasties become by then that, had the Old Ones been so inclined, they could have wiped out their foes with ease. Faced with the total collapse of their rule, the Triarch searched desperately for a means of restoring order. In this, their prayers were answered,though the price for their species would be incalculably high.

It was during the reign of the Silent King Szarekh that the godlike energy beings known as the C'tan first blighted the Necrontyr. It is impossible to say for certain how the Necrontyr first made contact with the C'tan, though many misleading, contradictory and one-sided accounts of these events exist. The dusty archives of the Tomb World of Solemnace claim it was but an accident, a chance discovery made by a stellar probe during the investigation of a dying star. The Book of Mournful Night, held under close guard in the Black Library's innermost sanctum, tells rather that the raw hatred that the Necrontyr held as a race for the Old Ones sang out across space, acting as a beacon that the C'tan could not ignore.

Another account claims that from the earliest days of their civilisation, Necrontyr scientists had been deeply engaged in stellar studies to try to understand and protect themselves from their own sun's baleful energies. After long, bitter centuries of searching for some power to unleash upon the Old Ones, the Necrontyr researchers used stellar probes to discover unusual electrodynamic anomalies in the oldest, dying stars of the galaxy. In the complex skeins of the energetic plasma of these suns, the Necrontyr found a sentience that was more ancient than that of any of the corporeal species in Creation, including the Old Ones.

They had discovered entities of pure energy that had spawned during the birth of the stars eons before. These entities had little conception of what the rest of the universe entailed when the Necrontyr first found them, instead simply feeding upon the solar flares and magnetic storms of these bloated red giants. But here was the weapon the Necrontyr had long sought to bring about the downfall of the Old Ones, beings they believed the C'tan were the progeny of the death-god they worshipped. Howsoever first contact occurred, the shadow of the C'tan fell over the oldest Necrontyr dynasties first.

The power of these star-born creatures was incredible, the raw energy of the stars made animate, and the Necrontyr called them the C'tan or "Star Gods" in their own tongue. The C'tan were dispersed across areas larger than whole planets, their consciousnesses too vast for humanoids to comprehend. How the Necrontyr ever managed to communicate with them is unknown to the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Understanding that such diffuse minds could never perceive the material universe without manifesting themselves in a material form, some Necrontyr actively sought the C'tan's favour and oversaw the forging of physical shells for the C'tan to occupy, cast from the living metal called Necrodermis. Fragmentary Eldar legends tell of translucent streamers of electromagnetic force shifting across space as the star vampires coiled into their new bodies in the physical realm across an incorporeal bridge of starlight. Thus clad, the C'tan took the shapes of the Necrontyr's half-forgotten gods, hiding their own desires beneath cloaks of obsequious subservience.

Incomprehensible forces were compressed into the living metal of the Necrodermis bodies which the Necrontyr had forged as the full power of the C'tan at last found form. As the C'tan focused their consciousnesses and became ever more aware of their new mode of existence, they came to appreciate the pleasures available to beings of matter and the other realities of corporeal life.

The deliciously focused trickles of electromagnetic energy given off by the physical bodies of the Necrontyr all about them awakened a new hunger in the C'tan very unlike the one they had once sated using the nourishing, but essentially tasteless, energies of the stars.

So it was that one of the C'tan came before the Silent King Szarekh, acting as forerunner to the coming of his brothers. Amongst its own kind, this C'tan was known as the Deceiver, for it was willfully treacherous. Yet the Silent King knew not the C'tan's true nature, and instead granted the creature an audience. The Deceiver spoke of a war, fought long before the birth of the Necrontyr, between the C'tan and the Old Ones. It was a war, he said, that the C'tan had lost.

In the aftermath, and fearing the vengeance of the Old Ones, he and his brothers had hidden themselves away, hoping one day to find allies with whom they could finally bring the Old Ones to account. In return for this aid, the Deceiver assured, he and his brothers would deliver everything that the Necrontyr craved. Unity could be theirs once again, and the immortality that they had sought for so long would finally be within their grasp. No price would their be for these great gifts, the Deceiver insisted, for they were but boons to be bestowed upon valued allies.

Thus did the Deceiver speak, and who can say how much of his tale was truth? It is doubtful whether even the Deceiver knew, for trickery had become so much a part of his existence that even he could no longer divine its root. Yet his words held sway over Szarekh who, like his ancestors before him, despaired of the divisions that were tearing his people apart.

For long solar months he debated the matter with the other two Phaerons of the Triarch and the nobles of his Royal Court. Through it all, the only dissenting voice was that of Orikan, the court astrologer, who foretold that the alliance between the Necrontyr and the C'tan would bring about a renaissance of glory, but destroy forever the soul of the Necrontyr people. Yet desire and ambition swiftly overrode caution, and Orikan's prophecy was dismissed. A Necrontyr year after the Deceiver had presented his proposition, the Triarch agreed to the alliance, and so forever doomed their race.

For their part, the Necrontyr soon fell into awe of their discoveries and the C'tan moved to take control over their benefactors. The powers of the C'tan manifested in the physical world were indeed almost god-like and it was not long before the C'tan were being worshiped as the Star Gods the Necrontyr had named them.

Perhaps they had been tainted by the material universe they had become a part of, or perhaps this had always been their nature even when they were bound to the suns they fed upon, but the C'tan proved to be as cruel and capricious as the stars from which they had been born. They soon revelled in the worship of the Necrontyr and feasted upon the life energies of countless mortal slaves.

Biotransference and the Rise of the Necrons

"When the Silent King saw what had been done, he knew at last the true nature of the C'tan, and of the doom they had wrought in his name."

—Excerpt from the Book of Mournful Night

Armed with weapons of god-like power and starships that could cross the galaxy in the blink of an eye, the Necrontyr stood ready to begin their war against the Old Ones anew. But the C'tan had another gift for their mortal subjects. They offered the Necrontyr a path to immortality and the physical stability their race had always craved.

Their diseased flesh would be replaced with the living metal of Necrodermis that made up their Star Gods' own physical forms. Their discarded organic husks would be consumed and their cold, metal forms would then be free to pursue their great vengeance against the Old Ones and the rest of a hateful universe, freed forever from the weaknesses of their hated flesh.

With the pact between the Necrontyr and C'tan sealed, the Star Gods revealed the form that immortality would take for the Necrontyr, and the great biotransference process began. Colossal cyclopean bio-furnaces built by Necrontyr artifice roared day and night, and into these the Silent King's peoples marched according to the terms of the pact he had made with the C'tan.

What blasphemous procedures the Necrontyr were subjected to within the raging bio-furnaces cannot be known, but certainly, each was stripped of flesh and of soul, his body replaced by a shell of living metal animated by what remained of his guttering self. Above each furnace swooped and dove the ethereal true-forms of the C'tan as they glutted themselves on the cast off spiritual detritus and life energy of an entire species; growing ever stronger.

It was only when the Silent King himself emerged from the bio-transference process and looked upon what had become of his people that he saw the awful truth of the pact he had made. As Szarekh watched the C'tan feast on the life essence of his people, he realised the terrible depth of his mistake. In many ways, he felt better than he had in solar decades, the countless aches and uncertainties of organic life now behind him. His new machine body was far mightier than the frail form he had tolerated for so long, and his thoughts were swifter and clearer than they had ever been.

Yet there was an emptiness gnawing at his mind, an inexpressible hollowness of spirit that defied rational explanation. In that moment, he knew with cold certainty that the price of physical immortality had been the loss of his soul. With great sorrow the Silent King beheld the fate he had brought upon his people: the Necrontyr were not but a memory, and the soulless, undying Necrons had been reborn in their place.

Yet though the price had been steep, biotransference had fulfilled all of the promises that the C'tan had made. Even the lowliest of the Necrontyr was now blessed with immortality -- age and hard radiation could little erode their new mechanical bodies, and only the most terrible of injuries could destroy them utterly. Likewise, the Necrons now enjoyed a unity that the Necrontyr had never known, though it was achieved through tyranny and the complete loss of individuality and emotion rather than by consent.

The biotransference process had embedded command protocols in every Necron mind, granting Szarekh the unswerving loyalty of his subjects. At first, the Silent King embraced this unanimity, for it was a welcome reprieve from the chaos that had consumed the Necrontyr Empire in recent years. However, as time wore on he grew weary of his burden, but dared not sever the command protocols lest his subjects turn on him seeking vengeance for the terrible curse he had visited upon them.

Thus the Necrontyr became the Necrons, cursed to the eternal servitude of their Star Gods. The C'tan feasted upon the entire Necrontyr race's life energies even as they made the transfers, leaving behind only the ghostly echoes of the Necrontyr's consciousnesses. Only a few of the most strong-willed Necrontyr retained their intellect and self-awareness, and even they were but shadows of their former selves. They had been purged of so much of what had made them unique individuals.

The Necrons cared not at all for their loss; all that mattered to them was that they would live forever without disease or death as their Star Gods had promised. The Necrontyr species was united as never before. The process imbued in every one of the Silent King's subjects the command protocols with which he would rule over them with an iron hand. The entire species was his to command, and so it fell upon the Necrons to honour their side of their terrible bargain.

Renewed by their devouring of the life energies of an entire species, the C'tan were unstoppable, and with the legions of the Necrons marching in their wake, the Old Ones were doomed. Only one thing truly remained of the old Necrontyr -- their burning hatred for all the other living, intelligent species of the universe. Legions of the undying living metal warriors set out into the galaxy in their Tomb Ships and the stars burned in their wake. The Old Ones' mastery of the Warp was now countered by the C'tan's supremacy over the physical universe, and the ancient enemies of the Necrons suffered greatly in the interstellar slaughter that followed.

The Necrons Ascendant

With the C'tan and the Necrons fighting as one, the Old Ones were now doomed to defeat. Glutted on the life force of the Necrontyr, the empowered C'tan were nigh unstoppable and unleashed forces beyond comprehension. Planets were razed, suns extinguished and whole star systems devoured by black holes called into being by the reality-warping powers of the Star Gods. Necron legions assailed the Old Ones in every corner of the galaxy. They brought under siege the fortresses of the Old Ones' many allies amongst the younger intelligent races of the galaxy, harvesting the life force of the defenders to feed their voracious C'tan masters.

In the closing years of the War in Heaven, one of the primary factors that led to the Necrons' ascendancy was their ability to finally gain access to the Old Ones' Webway. The C'tan known as Nyadra'zath, the Burning One, had long desired to carry his eldritch fires into that space beyond space, and so showed the Necrons how to breach its boundaries. Through a series of living stone portals known as the Dolmen Gates, the Necrons were finally able to turn the Old Ones' greatest weapon against them, vastly accelerating the ultimate end of the War in Heaven.

The portals offered by the Dolmen Gates were neither so stable, nor so controllable as the naturally occurring entrances to the Webway scattered across the galaxy. Indeed, in some curious fashion, the Webway can detect when its environs have been breached by a Dolmen Gate and its arcane mechanisms swiftly attempt to seal off the infected spur from the rest of the Labyrinthine Dimension until the danger to its integrity has passed. Thus, Necrons entering the Webway had to reach their intended destination through its shifting extradimensional corridors quickly, lest the network itself bring about their destruction.

In the wake of these victories, the C'tan and their undying Necron servants now dominated the galaxy. The last planetary bastions of the Old Ones were besieged and the intelligent races they had once nurtured became cattle for the obscene hunger of the C'tan. To the younger sentient species of the galaxy, the Necrons and their Star Gods were cruel masters, callously harvesting their populations at will to feed the C'tan's ceaseless hunger. The C'tan were figures of terror who demanded their adoration and fear in equal measure.

For unknown reasons, but probably because their individual hungers for mortal life energies knew no bounds, the C'tan ultimately began to fight amongst themselves for both sport and out of spite as they unleashed destructive forces beyond mortal comprehension. Among the Aeldari, an ancient myth holds that their Laughing God tricked the C'tan known as the Outsider into turning on its brothers and beginning their long war for ascendancy.

In the course of the C'tan's struggle against one another, destruction on a colossal scale was unleashed. New cities were built by the efforts of millions and then smashed down once more. As the "red harvests" of the C'tan and their Necron servants grew thin, C'tan eventually devoured C'tan, until only a few were left in the universe and they competed amongst themselves for a long age.

Eventually, even the Old Ones, who had once been defined by their patience and unstoppable will, became desperate in the face of the Necron assault. They used their great scientific skills to genetically engineer intelligent beings with an even stronger psychic link to the Warp, hoping to create servants with the capability of channeling psychic power to defend themselves.

They nurtured many potential warrior races, among which are believed to be the earliest members of the Aeldari species and many other xenos races, including the Rashan, the Jokaero, the K'nib, the Krork and many others. Millennia passed as the Old Ones' creations finally bore fruit whilst the C'tan and their Necron servants continued to extinguish life across the galaxy.

The Tide Turns

The Old Ones' psychically-empowered servant races spread across the galaxy, battling the advanced Necron technology with the psychic power of their Warp-spawned sorcery. Facing this new onslaught, the C'tan's empire was shattered, as the psychic forces of the Immaterium were anathema to soulless entities whose existence was wholly contained within purely physical patterns of electromagnetic force. For all the destruction they could unleash, they were unable to stop the Old Ones and the younger races' relentless advance across the stars.

The C'tan, unified by this great threat for the first time in millions of Terran years, sought a way to defeat the soul-fuelled energies of the younger species. They initiated a great warding, a plan to forever defeat the psychic sorceries of the Old Ones by sealing off the material universe from the Warp, a plan whose first fruits can still be found on the Imperial Fortress World of Cadia in the form of the great pylons that litter the surface of that world in intricate networks and create the area of space-time stability near the Eye of Terror known as the Cadian Gate.

With their god-like powers, it was only a matter of time until the C'tan succeeded and the greatest work of the C'tan was begun. But before it was complete, the seeds of destruction the Old Ones had planted millennia before brought about an unforeseen cataclysm. The growing pains and collective psychic flaws of the younger races threw the untapped, psychically reactive energies of the Immaterium into disorder.

War, pain and destruction were mirrored in the bottomless depth of the Sea of Souls that was the Warp. The maelstrom of souls unleashed into the Immaterium by the carnage of the War in Heaven coalesced in the previously formless energies of the Warp. Older entities that had existed within the Immaterium transformed into terrifying psychic predators, tearing at the souls of vulnerable psykers as their own environment was torn apart and reforged into the Realm of Chaos.

The Enslaver Plague

The denizens of the Warp clustered voraciously at the cracks between the Immaterium and the material universe, seeking new ways to enter the physical realm. The Old Ones brought forth new genetically-engineered warrior races to defend their last strongholds, including the technology-mimicking Jokaero and the formidable, green-skinned Krork who were the ancestors of the present day Orks, but it was already too late. The Old Ones' intergalactic Webway network was breached from the Immaterium and lost to them. Several of their Warp Gates were destroyed by their own hands to prevent the entities of the Warp from spreading to uncorrupted worlds. Despite their best efforts, the Old Ones' greatest works and places of power were overrun by the horrors their own creations had unleashed.

The most terrifying of these were the Enslavers, Warp entities whose ability to dominate the minds of the younger races and create their own portals into the material realm using transmuted, possessed psykers brought them forth in ever greater numbers. For the Old Ones, this was the final disaster as the Enslavers took control of their servants. The Pandora's Box unleashed by the creation of the younger races finally scattered the last of the Old Ones and broke their power over the galaxy once and for all. Life had stood at the edge of an apocalypse during the War in Heaven between the Old Ones and the C'tan. Now as the Enslavers breached the Immaterium in epidemic proportions, the survivors looked doomed.

Ultimately, beset by the implacable onset of the C'tan and the calamitous Warp-spawned perils they had themselves mistakenly unleashed, the Old Ones were defeated, scattered and finally destroyed. Whether the species went extinct or simply fled the galaxy to seek a new haven elsewhere is unknown.

The Silent King's Betrayal

Throughout the final stages of the War in Heaven, Szarekh bided his time, waiting for the moment in which the C'tan would prove vulnerable. Though the entire Necron race was now his to command, he could not hope to oppose the C'tan at the height of their power, and even if he did and met with success, the Necrons would then have to finish the War in Heaven against the Old Ones and their increasingly potent allies alone.

No, the Old Ones had to be completely and utterly defeated before the C'tan could be brought to account for the horror they had wrought. And so, when the C'tan finally won their great war, their triumph proved short-lived. With one hated enemy finally defeated, and the other spent from hard-fought victory, the Silent King at last led the Necrons in revolt against the C'tan masters.

In their arrogance, the C'tan did not realise their danger until it was too late. The Necrons focussed the unimaginable energies of the living universe into weapons too mighty for even the Star Gods to endure. Alas, the C'tan were immortal star-spawn, part of the fundamental fabric of reality and therefore nigh impossible to destroy. So was each C'tan instead sundered into thousands of smaller and less powerful fragments, yet this was sufficient to the Silent King's goals.

Indeed, he had known the C'tan's ultimate destruction to be impossible and had drawn his plans accordingly; each C'tan Shard was bound within a multidimensional Tesseract Labyrinth, as tramelled and secured as a Terran djinn trapped in a bottle. Though the cost of victory was high -- millions of Necrons had been destroyed as a consequence of the rebellion, including all of the members of the Triarch save the Silent King himself -- the Necrons were once more in command of their own destiny.

The Great Sleep

The Necrons had been vindicated in their pursuit only of science and control over the material realm and certainly took pleasure in seeing the Old Ones' civilisation collapse as a result of their over-indulgence of psychic power, and the end of the C'tan's domination over their race. Yet even with the defeat of the Old Ones and the C'tan alike, the Silent King saw that the time of the Necrons in the galaxy was over -- for the moment, at least. They would allow the Enslavers to take what was left of the sentient life in the galaxy and let it become an interstellar wasteland; the psyker swarm would then die away and in time the galaxy would evolve new lifeforms who would be less sophisticated and easier to dominate.

In addition, the Necrons understood that the mantle of galactic dominion was soon to pass to the Aeldari, one of the psychically-potent races that had fought alongside the Old Ones throughout the War in Heaven and had thus come to hate the Necrons and all their works with the burning passion that is the defining characteristic of that species. The Aeldari had survived where the Old Ones had not, and the Necrons, weakened by their expenditure of lives and resources in overthrowing the rule of the C'tan, could not stand against them.

Yet the Silent King knew that the time of the Aeldari would eventually pass, as it must pass for all those beings still cloaked in the flesh. It would take millions of Terran years for the Aeldari's power to fade, but what mattered is that the Necrons would be there to take advantage of it.

So it was that the Silent King ordered the remaining Necron cities to be transformed into great tomb complexes threaded with stasis-crypts. Let the Aeldari shape the galaxy for a time -- they were but ephemeral, whilst the Necrons were undying and eternal. The Silent King's final command to his people was that they must sleep for the equivalent of 60 million standard years but awake ready to rebuild all that they had lost, to restore the Necron dynasties to their former glory.

This was the Silent King's final order, and as the last Tomb World sealed its subterranean vaults, Szarekh destroyed the command protocols by which he had controlled his people for so long, for he had failed them utterly. Without a backward glance, Szarekh, the last of the Silent Kings of the Triarch, took ship into the starless void of intergalactic space, there to find whatever measure of solace or penance he could.

Meanwhile, aeons passed and the Necrons slept on, their machine slaves and constructs guarding them while they slept on Tomb Worlds that had been purged of all life to keep the Enslavers from their door. This plan worked with an amazing degree of success until the Necrons were awakened by the forces of the Imperium of Man in the late 41st Millennium to plague the galaxy once more. They discovered a new and unexpected age of interstellar civilisation and war much like the one they had left behind 60 million years before. The galaxy is blossoming with life once more, but is still overrun with latent psykers and worshippers of the infernal Chaotic Warp energies unleashed during the War in Heaven. It will take time and a great many machinations for the Necron dynasties to regain their rightful place as the rulers of the galaxy; the agents of Chaos must be overthrown; the dangerous Eldar, inheritors of the Old Ones' mantle, eliminated; Mankind subjugated and the great work cutting off the material universe from the Warp completed before a new age of Necron dominion can truly begin. But the Necrons are ageless and undying, their technology still unmatched by any of the younger races. And time is always on their side...

The Great Awakening

"Adversary, know that your squalid colony rests upon a rightful crown world of the Novokh Dynasty. Know also that whilst your presence cannot be tolerated, we are bound by code of honour to allow you opportunity to withdraw. You are therefore granted one solar month, commencing at termination of this transmission, to remove all trace of your presence. If you fail to accept this generous offer, my armies shall conclude these negotiations. We advise you not to mistake honourable warning for lack of resolve."

—Necron ultimatum received by Planetary Governor Mendican Harrow of Imperial Hive World Dhol VI

None can say for sure how many Tomb Worlds entered the Great Sleep, but it is certain that a great many did not survive into the late 41st Millennium. Technologically advanced though the Necrons were, to attempt a stasis-sleep of such scale was a great risk, even for them.

For 60 million Terran years the Necrons slept, voicelessly waiting for their chance to complete the Silent King's final order: to restore the Necron dynasties to their former glory. As the centuries passed, ever more Tomb Worlds fell prey to malfunction or ill-fortune. For many, the results were minor, such as a disruption to the operation of the Tomb World's chronostat or revivification chambers, causing the inhabitants to awaken later than intended -- but some of the Tomb Worlds suffered more calamitous events.

Cascade failures of stasis-crypts destroyed millions, if not billions, of dormant Necrons. Some Tomb Worlds were destroyed by the retribution of marauding Eldar, their defence systems overmatched by these ancient enemies of the Necrons. Other Tomb Worlds fell victim to the uncaring evolution of the galaxy itself. Tectonically unstable planets crushed Necron strongholds slumbering at their hearts; stars went supernova, consuming orbiting Tomb Worlds in their death throes. And everywhere, inquisitive lifeforms scrabbled and fought over the bones of Necron territories, causing more damage in their unthinking search for knowledge than the vengeful Eldar ever could.

The Great Awakening has been far from precise, and the Necrons have not arisen as one people but in fitful starts over scattered millennia, like some gestalt sleeper rising from a troubled dream. Errors in circuitry and protocols ensured that a revivification destined to take place in the early years of the 41st Millennium of the Imperial Calendar actually began far earlier in a few cases, or has yet to occur at all in others.

The very first Tomb Worlds revived to see the Great Crusade of the Emperor of Mankind sweep across the galaxy in the late 30th Millennium. A handful stirred in time to see the Nova Terra Interregnum, when Nova Terra challenged the might of the Golden Throne in the 34th Millennium for 900 years, or arose at the hour in which the Apostles of the Blind King waged their terrible wars that began in 550.M37. Some have still never awoken. Even now, at the close of the 41st Millennium, billions of Necrons still slumber in their stasis-tombs, silently awaiting the clarion call of destiny.

It is rare for a Tomb World to awaken to full function swiftly. With but the slightest flaw in the revivification cycle, the engrammatic pathways of a Necron sleeper scatter and degrade. In most cases, these coalesce over time to restore identity and purpose, but it is a process that can take decades, or even centuries, and cannot be hurried. Sometimes recovery never occurs and the sleeper is doomed forever to a mindless state.

There are thousands of Tomb Worlds scattered throughout the galaxy whose halls are thronged with shambling automatons, Necrons whose minds fled during the long hibernation, and whose bodies have been co-opted by a Tomb World's master autonomic program in an attempt to bring some form of order to their existence. Other Necrons refer to such places as the Severed Worlds, and they loathe and fear their inhabitants in equal measure. None of this is to say that even an individual lucky enough to achieve a flawless revivification awakens alert and aware.

One of the hidden tyrannies of biotransference was how it entrenched the gulf between the rulers and the ruled, for there were not enough resources to provide all Necrontyr with living metal bodies that possessed the density of engrammatic pathways required to retain the full gamut of personality and awareness. Thus, as was ever the case, the very finest necrodermis bodies went to those individuals of the highest rank within Necrontyr society: the Phaerons and Overlords, their Crypteks and Nemesors.

For the professional soldiery, the merely adequate was deemed appropriate. As for the common people, they received that which remained: comparatively crude mechanical bodies that were little more than lobotomised prisons for their minds. Numb to all joy and experience, they are bound solely to the will of their betters, their function meaningless without constant direction. Yet even here a tiny spark of self-awareness remains, enough only to torment the Necron with memories and echoes of the past it once knew. For these tortured creatures, death would be far preferable but, alas, they no longer have the wit to realise it or the autonomy to search it out.

Having slept so still and for so long, it is not possible for a Tomb World to awaken quickly into a fully alert state. While dormant, each is controlled by a master artificial intelligence program that oversees its essential maintenance and defence, mobilising what resources it judges appropriate to any given situation or threat.

As the long awaited time of awakening nears, as best can be judged by the master program, more of its systems are brought online and more of the interred revived. A Tomb World is at its most vulnerable during the revivification process. The colossal amounts of energy generated are detectable across light years, and are an irresistable lure to the inquisitive and acquisitive alike. In its early stages, a Tomb World's defence lies in the hands of the Necrons' robotic servitor constructs -- the Canoptek Spyders, Scarabs and Wraiths.

Initially these defenders will be directed by the Tomb World's autonomic master program, whose complex algorithmic decision matrix allows it to calculate an efficient response to any perceived threat. As the threat level rises, so too does the intensity of the master program's countermeasures, prioritising the activation of the Tomb World's automated defences and the revivification of its armies according to the needs of the situation at hand. If all goes well, the master program's actions will be sufficient to drive out the invader, or at least stall their progress until the first Necron legions have awoken.

Often, it is the lower order of Necrons, the Necron Warriors and Immortals, that are awakened in the initial phases. These nearly mindless automatons following their lifeless protocols are brought online first, so that the way might be prepared for the more senior members of the dynasty. As each tier in the Necron dynasty's hierarchy is revived, each more intelligent and bearing more individuality than the last, the whole process gradually begins to appear more like the workings of an ancient civilisation and less like that of some great machine. At the allotted time, a Necron Overlord is awakened, and upon his full revival the master program cedes power to its creators. From that point onward, a truly ancient mind leads the Tomb World, and what happens next depends entirely upon his character and ambition.

Having been awakened and control turned over to an Overlord, the Tomb World must in time take its place in the domains of the Necron dynasty that created it. While many dynasties have never awakened and, due to a variety of disasters never will, many are slowly piecing together their former domains. One world at a time, empires that vanished aeons ago are being rebuilt and long-dormant hierarchies are reasserting themselves once more. At the centre of each of these risen empires is a crown world, the glorious capital and seat of the Phaeron who rules an entire dynasty. Below it are numerous lesser Tomb Worlds and other Necron holdings, though rarely are these anywhere near as extensive as they were in their full glory 60 million years ago.

When a large population centre of a younger race of the galaxy has evolved or expanded across the stars close to a Tomb World, the encoded programming delves deep into its data archives and armouries in order to conduct an aggressive defence. Such Tomb Worlds are the ones that have expanded their spheres of influence most rapidly, for its rulers have awakened to find their full military might already mobilised and awaiting their commands. Indeed, the speed with which many Tomb Worlds of the Sautekh Dynasty have recovered lost territory is chiefly attributable to the (ultimately doomed) wave of Ulumeathi colonies established on their coreworlds during the late 39th Millennium.

To external observers, the behaviour of awoken Tomb Worlds must seem eclectic almost to the point of randomness. Some Necron Lords send diplomatic emissaries to other worlds, negotiating for the return of lost territories and technological artefacts, or cast off into the stars, searching for distant Tomb Worlds not yet awoken. Others focus attention inwards, avoiding unnecessary conflict with alien races to pursue internal politics or oversee the rebuilding of their planet to the glory of 60 million years past.

The vast majority of Tomb Worlds, however, take a more aggressive tack, launching resource raids, planetary invasions or the full-blown genocidal purges the Necrons' former C'tan masters once called "red harvests." Yet even here, it is impossible to predict the precise form these deeds will take. Sometimes the Necrons attack in the full panopoly and spectacle of honourable war, rigorously applying their ancient codes of battle. At others, every possible underhanded tactic is employed, from piracy and deception, to assassination and subornation. On other occasions, the campaign is less a martial action than a systematic extermination, the swatting of lesser lifeforms as they themselves would swat insects.

All of these acts, diverse though they are in scope and method, are directed towards a single common goal: the restoration of the Necron dynasties to rule over the galaxy. Yet, with the Triarch long gone and huge numbers of Tomb Worlds lying desolate or still dormant, there can be no galaxy-wide coordination, no grand strategy that will bring about Necron ascendancy. Instead, each Tomb World's ruler must fend for himself, pursuing whatever course he deems most suited to circumstance.

For some, this is the domination of nearby threats and the sowing of terror on alien worlds. For others, it might be the recovery of cultural treasures of the lost Necrontyr, the stockpiling of raw strategic materials for campaigns yet to come, or even the search for an organic species whose bodies might prove to be suitable vessels for Necron minds, thus finally ending the curse of biotransference. Indeed, this last matter -- the apotheosis from undying machine back to living being -- is the key motivating factor for many Necron nobles and royals, for its possibility weighed heavily on the Silent King's mind at the moment of his final command.

All this is further complicated by the fact that the departure of the Silent King and the dissolution of the Necrontyr Empire's Triarch left no clear succession. As a result, the rulers of many Tomb Worlds see an opportunity not only to restore the dynasties of old, but also to improve their standing within the galaxy-wide Necron political hierarchy. The motives of Necron nobles and royals are often muddied by the pursuit of personal power, making accurate divination of an individual's intentions -- and therefore of the campaigns conducted by his undying legions -- nigh impossible.

Only now, as more and more Tomb Worlds awaken, is a pattern becoming visible to those whose mission it is to stand watch upon the trackless reaches of the galaxy and beyond. Piecing together scattered accounts of skull-faced reaper-machines rising from the dust of Dead Worlds the length and breadth of the galaxy, the xenos-savants of the Imperial Inquisition are faced with a stark realisation. What at first appeared to be unrelated alien raids serving no overall purpose were, in fact, the heralds of a disaster of galactic proportions.

Necrons in the 41st Millennium

The Necrons are still a shadowy presence rather than a full-fledged force in the galaxy of the present time. They strike out of nowhere without warning, wreak havoc and leave before any major reinforcements can arrive. The origins of these various attacks and their motives are unknown, though it is known that the current Necron forces in the galaxy are only soul harvesters, not the full-fledged fighting machines of the C'tan.

They seem to attack from nowhere often simply appearing at nearly any location in the galaxy, no matter how well-defended. Once in the recent past they touched down on Mars, simply passing by the Imperial Navy fleets protecting the Sol System unnoticed, and ultimately casting doubt on the impregnable status of Terra itself. The Necrons reached the Red Planet's surface and explored its subterranean Noctis Labyrinthus, perhaps in search of one of their C'tan masters, believed to be the entity known in the legends of the Adeptus Mechanicus as the Dragon of Mars, before being destroyed by the agents of the Imperium.

This incident, however, is a heavily guarded secret within the Imperium of Man, which greatly fears that the Necrons may awaken the C'tan known as the Void Dragon which inhabits a stasis tomb beneath the sands of Mars. At the same time, the Imperium has been unable to capture a Necron in an attempt to learn their secrets; entire Necron forces simply vanish into thin air using their phase technology -- and they always take their "dead" with them.

The Necron forces come from Tomb Worlds as yet uncharted by the Imperium. Their phase technology allows them to deploy anywhere in the galaxy, almost instantaneously through unknown means. In defeat, they "phase-out" and return to their associated tomb-world for repairs. Any Necrons that have fallen in battle can be repaired there and re-animated, so their losses thus far have been minimal. Should a Necron be totally annihilated in battle, then they are truly beyond phase-out or repair, but again, often so little survives that the scientists of living races often have nothing to study.

The Necrons may have infiltrated the Imperium to an extent. Their elite anti-psyker troops, the Pariahs, are an unholy cross of human mutant and Necron technology. It is believed by Mechanicus savants that the Necrons had the Pariah Gene engineered into what became the human gene pool over 65 million Terran years ago. This gene has since manifested itself in the agents of the Culexus Temple, the specialised anti-psyker assassins of the Officio Assassinorum. Recently, however, there has been a dramatic decerase in the use of Necron Pariahs in Necron armies, and the Ordo Xenos believes that these troops may not have proven as effective as Necron commanders had once hoped and are being phased out of the Necron dynasties' order of battle.

Ancient Enemies

Of all the galaxy's great powers, only the Aeldari see the Necrons for the threat they truly are to all of the other sentient species -- and even they cannot be sure how many Tomb Worlds slumber in the darkness. After the War in Heaven, the Aeldari took up a silent watch for any sign of Necron reemergence, and set watch on worlds they suspected of nurturing hidden stasis tombs.

Many such worlds were seeded with life and adopted as homes by Aeldari outcasts and Exodites, whose descendants would maintain the vigil. Where this was not possible, suspected Tomb Worlds were marked on a great crystal map so that their locations would not be lost as the millennia passed. Yet, as the ages of the galaxy passed, the Aeldari became distracted by their own plights and thus forgot the duty they had sworn to uphold for their lost patrons, the Old Ones.

By the time of the Fall of the Aeldari in the 30th Millennium -- the terrible birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh -- the slumbering Necrons had been all but forgotten. Only in the Black Library and amongst a few outspoken segments of Eldar society did the vigil continue.

For the Aeldari, the Necrons are a nightmare come to life. The children of Isha hold soullessness to be the very worst of all fates, and the Necrons therefore provoke an abiding terror that the Aeldari can never truly suppress. For the Seer Council of the Alaitoc Craftworld, however, a time of terrible vindication is at hand. The Aeldari of Alaitoc remembered their ancient duty whilst their peers forgot.

They recovered the fragments of the great map from one of the Crone Worlds of the Eye of Terror, spread their networks of Aeldari outcasts and Exodites ever wider and waited for the ancient enemy to return. So it is that whilst most Craftworlds are re-honing half-remembered strategies from the War in Heaven, Alaitoc is reaching its hand, assailing the Necrons on their own territory, sabotaging their Tomb Worlds and bringing the fight to their legions of undying warriors whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Recent Events

In the late 41st Millennium, humanity is widespread throughout the stars of the galaxy and encounters the Necrons with some frequency, but there is no mechanism by which the experiences of one embattled world can be shared with the wider Imperium of Man. Even if there were, by what means would the data be catalogued? Hundreds of human worlds are depopulated or destroyed every year, and if their fates are noted at all by the Administratum, the cause of their demise is rarely discovered. There is no single repository of information in the Imperium, no established central historical record -- in a galaxy-spanning civilisation so shrouded in ignorance and superstition, it would be remarkable if it were otherwise.

Some Imperial scholars hold that the slaughter of the Sisters of Battle stationed at Sanctuary 101 in 897.M41 represented the first contact between Mankind and the Necrons. Such men do so in ignorance of the many millions of encounters that, though predating the Sanctuary 101 event, went entirely unremarked upon because no one survived to make note of them, the records were lost or deemed mythic, or simply took place on a world where the inhabitants made no distinction between differing alien perils. More so, it displays the classic arrogance of men who assumed that the boundaries of their knowledge are, in fact, the boundaries of reality. What follows is a list of the most pertinent recent events in the history of the reawakened Necron race and its encounters with the other intelligent cultures of the galaxy:

Notable Necron Dynasties

Even in life, the Necrontyr civilisation was one of strict protocol and process, governed by nobles whose rule was absolute. This rigid hierarchy became more entrenched during the transition from flesh to machine, and the awakening Necron civilisation is far more complex and stratified than the one that once ruled the galaxy.

Every Necron belongs to a royal dynasty, one of the great houses of the ancient Necrontyr Empire. Allegiance to a dynasty was once purely a matter of family and tradition, but it is now entrenched through conquest and programming. Every Necron noble is truly individualistic and, whilst they might share a common set of customs and loyalties, they rarely have a unity of purpose beyond that imposed by their superiors.

Accordingly, whilst several neighbouring worlds might owe allegiance to the same royal dynasty, the agendas they pursue depends entirely on the whims and goals of each Necron Overlord or Lord, rather than the broader traditions of the dynasty.

Before the coming of the C'tan, there were many hundreds of Necrontyr dynasties. Some wielded vast political and military power while others were vestigial and broken, mere echoes of once-great noble houses. Through the Wars of Secession, the rebellion against biotransference, the War in Heaven and the Great Sleep, many thousands of royal dynasties were destroyed. It is impossible to say how many survived, save that they number in the hundreds, or possibly thousands. Those dynasties listed below can be considered the most powerful of those that remain and are currently known to the Imperium of Man.

A

Dynasty Name Notes Dynastic Glyph Agdagath Dynasty The Agadagath Dynasty is a little-known Necron Dynasty that rules many Tomb Worlds within the Segmentum Tempestus. In 998.41, this Necron dynasty abandoned the Tomb World of Tyr after it was overrun by Flayed Ones. Atun Dynasty The Atun Dynasty rules many Tomb Worlds on the northern galactic rim -- the original birthplace of the Necrontyr species. Many of the ancient wonders of the galaxy lie under the control of the Phaeron of Atun and his powerful Overlords, and still many more wait to be uncovered from Tomb Worlds not yet awoken. Altymhor Dynasty Rule by Overlord Vitokh, the Altymhor Dynasty is located in the Segmentum Obscurus near the Eye of Terror. They are an unusual Necron Dynasty as they have displayed the unusual propensity for subjugating worlds held by the younger races, and utilising them as slaves, as they did with the Imperial Hive World of Aryand in 829.M41. After a long a bloody siege, Aryand's governor accepted Vitokh's terms and Aryand became a slave world in service to the Necron dynasty of Altymhor. No pict-file found. Arotepk Dynasty The Arotephk Dynasty rules many Tomb Worlds to the far galactic south, just beyond the borders of the Segmentum Tempestus. In 898.M41, legions of the Arotepk marched upon the Eldar Maiden World of Silentia. The Necrons fought their way through an alliance of Craftworld Eldar and Harlequins to plunder an ancient gem from the heart of Silentia's world spirit, before vanishing into the void. In 912.M41, a shard of the Void Dragon escaped from its imprisonment, laying waste to the Arotepk Dynasty in its mindless rage. Though only a faint shadow of a true C'tan, the Void Dragon gorged itself on a dozen worlds, expending its fury upon the living before the Arotepk Crypteks could finally force it back into its cage. No pict-file found. Arrynmarok Dynasty The Arrynmarok Dynasty is a formerly independent Necron Dynasty, located to the galactic east in the Ultima Segmentum, that swore allegiance to Imotekh the Stormlord in 798.M41, in order to defend their Tomb World of Somonor from a large Eldar war host led by Farseer Eldorath Starbane. Somonor's Overlord Szaron had little hesitation in pledging his allegiance to the growing Sautekh Dynasty, for the alternative was to see his domain destroyed at Starbane's hands. The Arrynmarok Dynasty now serve as a Client Dynasty to the powerful Sautek Dynasty. No pict-file found.

B

Dynasty Name Notes Dynastic Glyph Bone Kingdom of Drazak Located in the northeast of the galaxy within the Ghoul Stars lies the Necron Dynasty upon the Tomb World of Drazak known as the Bone Kingdom of Drazak. This benighted world is a haunt of Flayed Ones, those cursed Necrons blighted by a hunger for flesh. Only one amongst Drazak's entire population is proof from its pervading madness -- Overlord Valgûl -- who rules over this charnel kingdom. Ever few solar months, when no more meat remains, Valgûl announces a new Time of Bounty, and despatches the fleets of Drazak to raid nearby worlds. These reavers of Drazak seek not riches nor conventional plunder -- only tithes of gore and cooling blood. No pict-file found.

C

Dynasty Name Notes Dynastic Glyph Charnovokh Dynasty Much of the territory once ruled by the Charnovokh Dynasty lies far to the galactic southeast. Many of its dormant Tomb Worlds were devoured by the Tyranids' Hive Fleet Behemoth, and countless others have been ravaged during the Imperium of Man's counterattacks against the Great Devourer. As a result, the remaining star systems of the Charnovokh Dynasty are many, but small and scattered.

D

Dynasty Name Notes Dynastic Glyph Dyvanakh Dynasty The Dyvanakh Dynasty rules many Tomb Worlds to the galactic south-east in the Ultima Segmentum, adjacent to the Sekemtar Dynasty, a Client Dynasty of the powerful Sautek Dynasty. Awakening from their stasis sleep on the Crown World of Trakonn in early M41, the Dyvanakh were unable to shake off their hibernation-induced orientation for nearly five centuries, making them vulnerable to attack by a nearby Imperial Forge World. During their time in stasis, many of their Tomb Worlds were engulfed and destroyed by a Warp Storm thousands of years before Trakonn emerged from slumber. Ignorant of this fact, the nobles of Trakonn continue their hopeless search to this day. No pict-file found.

E

Dynasty Name Notes Dynastic Glyph Empire of the Severed The Empire of the Severed is a unique and unknown Necron Dynasty that is based upon the Tomb World of Sarkon, located in the north-eastern border of the Segmentum Obscurus. During the Great Sleep, radiation storms ravaged the Tomb World and destroyed forever the memory engrams of every Necron interred within. The complex's master program took charge of their bodies, though without realising that its own systems had also been damaged. Identifying itself as the Sarkoni Emperor, the mindless legions of Sarkon invaded the nearby slumbering Tomb World of Takarak and swiftly overwhelmed its defences. As of 967.M41, another three Tomb Worlds have been overcome in this manner, and the Sarkoni Emperor has begun to extend its will across other, non-Necron worlds, using mindshackle scarabs to bring any unruly living creatures under its control. No pict-file found.

F

No known Necron Dynasties begin with the letter "F."

G

No known Necron Dynasties begin with the letter "G."

H

Dynasty Name Notes Dynastic Glyph Hyrekh Dynasty The Hyrekh Dynasty was a Necron Dynasty located in the Ultima Segmentum upon the Tomb World of Orrak, who's day of return was accurately predicted by the Farseers of Craftworld Alaitoc. In 847.M41, as soon as the vast stasis-locks protecting the deep Hyrekh war-crypts disengaged, and the first Necrons crawled out of the tomb, the Eldar were waiting for them. This day was marked by Alaitoc as the Scouring of the Seers. The Necron soldiery of the Hyrekh were known to wear the crystal of their system's asteroids No pict-file found.

I

No known Necron Dynasties begin with the letter "I."

J

No known Necron Dynasties begin with the letter "J."

K

Dynasty Name Notes Dynastic Glyph Kayra Dynasty The Kayra Dynasty is a Necron Dynasty that is locked in a perpetual feud with the rival Rytak Dynasty. In 873.M41, both feuding Dynasties each despatch Deathmarks to eradicate the other's court. Such is their success, both worlds are left leaderless. No pict-file found. Khansu Dynasty By no means did all of the Necrontyr people go willingly to the chambers of transformation, but the nobility of the Khansu Dynasty fought the onset of biotransference more than most, and at every turn. When it became clear that no amount of political manoeuvring or manipulation could prevent what was to come, the Khansu Dynasty fought in armed revolt against the Triarch. Yet one Phaeron, no matter how powerful, could not hope to fight the rest of the dynasties and their C'tan masters. Ascendant Prince Rakszan was one of the few nobles amongst the Khansu Dynasty to choose biotransference of his own volition, and he cursed his people for their foolishness in resisting what could be a new age of glory. For his loyalty to the Triarch, Rakszan was granted high military rank and his first campaigns were those that brought his rebellious kinsmen to heel. One by one, Khansu's coreworlds fell, the crownworld of Hamun last of all, and those few rebels that survived were dragged to the chambers of transformation. At first, Rakszan was pleased, for his people would now have the chance to regain the honour lost in revolt against the Triarch. Yet, as the War in Heaven ground on, he witnessed the C'tan and their underlings systematically destroying his dynasty. Indiginity was added to defeat, with the Necrons of the Khansu Dynasty deployed at the forefront of every battle, or else despatched on campaigns where there was little hope of success and none of survival. Little by little, Rakszan came to realise the terrible depths of his mistake. When the Necron rebellion against the C'tan began, none fought so hard as he to see the Star Gods toppled. By this time, the Khansu Dynasty was lost forever, its nobles destroyed in the War in Heaven, its Warriors and Immortals seized by other dynasties and reprogrammed to their service. In all the galaxy, only Rakszan remained to speak for his slaughtered kin, and he held himself a traitor to their memory. With no other way remaining to atone for his betrayal, Rakszan swore that he would see every surviving fragment of every C'tan caged, so that they could never again arise. It is a quest that continues to this day. No pict-file found. Kardenath Dynasty The Kardenath Dynasty is a Necron Dynasty located beyond the easternmost border of the Ultima Segmentum within the northern reaches of the Eastern Fringe. They are ruled by Overlord Akanabekh, Phaeron of the Kardenath Dynasty. The Tomb World of Nagathar is known to be a part of the Kardenath's domain. No pict-file found.

L

No known Necron Dynasties begin with the letter "L."

M

Dynasty Name Notes Dynastic Glyph Maynarkh Dynasty The Maynarkh Dynasty forms one of the subdivisions of the Necron race and is with the Sautekh Dynasty one of the most military-minded and powerful ruling dynasties of the entire species. Conquerors and exterminators, the Maynarkh have always been loyal servants of the Silent King, often acting as his right hand to punish those that would oppose him. This has earned them the hostility of many other dynasties, many of who would have preferred for the Maynarkh to be destroyed or never to be reawoken at all. But loathe to lose such a precious tool, the Silent King had taken special precautions to ensure that the Maynarkh would survive their 60 million-year-long slumber. The Maynarkh only recently awoke from their stasis-tombs and the Undying Legions of the Maynarkh were responsible for the utter devastation and loss of the Orpheus Sector on the exterior border of the Segmentum Tempestus of the Imperium of Mankind. In what has since then been named the Orphean War, the Maynarkh Dynasty has brought an entire Imperial sector low. Their further intentions are currently unknown. Mephrit Dynasty The Mephrit Dynasty is a Necron Dynasty located in the Ultima Segmentum. They possess a reputation as planet killers and acted as the solar executioners of the War in Heaven under orders of the Silent King, who often utilised this ruthless dynasty to exterminate a race or planet that proved especially defiant. The march of aeons during the Great Sleep left the Mephrit's grandeur faded and tattered. Their world-rending weapons were lost to the void or fallen into disrepair, while many of their coreworlds are no more. Perhaps most disastrous of all for the Mephrit was the loss of their phaeron, Khyrek the Eternal, who was obliterated along with the dynasty's Crownworld by Eldar assassins. A power vacuum was left by their master's demise, as many of Mephrit's Overlords continue to cling to the past. Zarathusa the Ineffable, Overlord of Perdita, turns his legions once more to the stars, setting off on a crusade of reclamation.

N

Dynasty Name Notes Dynastic Glyph Nekthyst Dynasty During the Wars of Secession, the nobles of the Nekthyst Dynasty earned themselves a reputation as turncoats and betrayers, for many of them held to pacts and alliances only so long as it served their interests. Though these events were long ago, the taint of dishonour still hangs heavy over the Nekthyst Dynasty, and few Phaerons of other noble lineages will stoop even to treat with them, let alone trust them. Nephrekh Dynasty The Nephrekh Dynasty is a Necron Dynasty located in the Ultima Segmentum. Ruled by Phaeron Sylphek, Overlord of the Nephrekh Dynasty, the trinary stars of the Nephrekh Crownworld of Aryand fill the skies of their tomb worlds with a near-limitless supply of energy. This enables the warriors of Nephrekh to drink deep and grow strong. When their Phaeron awoke from his slumber, he was consumed by an obsession with the stars themselves, and so the Crypteks of the Nephrekh crafted him a living-gold skin - a gift he has shared with his followers so that they might embody the glory of the triple suns of Nephrekh as they do battle. Neokhares Dynasty The Neokhares Dynasty controlled the great artificial Tomb World known as Borsis, called by the Imperium of Man the "World Engine." The World Engine was assaulted in 926.M41 by task forces raised from 15 separate Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes plus multiple elements from the Imperial Navy, and even the mightiest weapons the Imperial forces could bring to bear could not harm it. The World Engine was destroyed when the entire Astral Knight Chapter sacrified itself to penetrate the great construct and sabotage its internal command arrays. This brought down Borsis' Void Shields and weapon systems and allowed the Imperial warships to successfully open fire upon it. Nihilakh Dynasty The territories of the Nihilakh Dynasty are parochial in the extreme, venturing little outside their domains. Whilst this isolationism is perhaps a boon to those alien races that dwell near to awakened Nihilakh Tomb Worlds, it also carries significant peril. Undepleted by the grind of military expansion like their counterparts in the more expansionist dynasties, the Necron armies of Nihilakh stand ready to take their vengeance upon any interloper. If attacked, the Nihilakh do not rest until the aggressor has been utterly destroyed. Novokh Dynasty The Novokh Dynasty is a Necron Dynasty located in the northern reaches of the Ultima Segmentum near the larger Atun Dynasty. Ruled from the Crownworld of Dhol VI, the crimson armour of the Novokh is a bloody legacy of past victories over the unworthy. Even millennia later, though now creatures of living metal long parted from flesh, their Overlords paint their legions crimson in honour of the ritual spilling of blood. To the Warriors and Immortals of the Novokh, this fragment of their past awakens a spark of violent pride and spurs them on to acts of murder.

O

Dynasty Name Notes Dynastic Glyph Ogdobekh Dynasty The Ogdobekh Dynasty was ever famed for its technical mastery. As a result, its Tomb Worlds were more prepared for the Great Sleep, and more completely outfitted with backup systems and multiple redundancies. The dynasty's relative power is therefore greater than it was in ancient times, for its people have emerged far more reliably from stasis hibernation than most other Necrons. Oltep Dynasty The Oltep Dynasty was a Necron Dynasty that awoke upon the Tomb World of Cocholos in 052.M40, only to find their planet's inner fires dead. The lords of the re-emergent Oltep Dynasty delved deep beneath the empty Imperial hab-blocks only to discover that the favoured Daemon Prince of Khorne, known as Beublghor, now made his lair within the colossal hollow sphere of their planet's core. The titanic entity, having grown mighty after slaughtering the humans of Cocholos, took exception to the metal ants stalking through his burrow. Taking the form of a vast, armoured leech with a Warp vortex in place of a head, he summoned his daemonic legions and plunged headlong into the Necrons. Battle raged in the darkness. The Necron armies were undone when Beublghor's tunnels began to shift and flow into new shapes. Beublghor and his innumerable Bloodletter armies crushed the isolated Necron strike forces one by one. The Necrons of the Oltep Dynasty were obliterated, and their metal skulls are still heaped deep within the planet's cold womb. No pict-file found. Oroskh Dynasty The worlds ruled by the Oroskh Dynasty are heavily infected by the dreaded Flayer Virus -- the result of a deliberate contamination conducted by Eldar Pathfinders from the Alaitoc Craftworld. Year by standard year, the populations of the Orosokh Tomb Worlds shrink further as ever more Necrons devolve into Flayed Ones. Oruscar Dynasty The Necrontyr nobles of the Oruscar Dynasty were ever bitter rivals with those of the Sauthekh Dynasty. Whilst the power of the Sautekh was spread wide throughout the ancient stars, Oruscar's holdings were limited to a handful of hallowed ancestral worlds laden with a multitude of technological wonders. This rivalry is not ended in the current era, merely dormant. Both dynasties are, thus far, pursuing the wider goal of reclaiming the galaxy for the Necron race -- but such a state of affairs is unlikely to last forever.

P

No known Necron Dynasties begin with the letter "P."

Q

No known Necron Dynasties begin with the letter "Q."

R

Dynasty Name Notes Dynastic Glyph Rytak Dynasty The Rytak Dynasty is a Necron Dynasty that is locked in a perpetual feud with the rival Kayra Dynasty. In 873.M41, both feuding Dynasties each despatch Deathmarks to eradicate the other's court. Such is their success, both worlds are left leaderless. No pict-file found.

S

Dynasty Name Notes Dynastic Glyph Sautekh Dynasty In the times before biotransference, the Sautekh Dynasty was ranked as the third most powerful of all the Necrontyr royal dynasties. Through chance or design, many of the Sautekh coreworlds survived the aeons better than those of other dynasties. Now, this Necron dynasty is more powerful than any other in the galaxy, and its nobility is the most aggressive in attempting a new wave of expansion intended to reforge the ancient Necron Empire. Sarnekh Dynasty The Sarnekh Dynasty is a Necron Dynasty based upon the Crownworld of Zapennec, which is located in the Segmentum Pacificus. During the final hours of the War in Heave, one of its greatest battles occurred in orbit above Zapennec, when Sarnekh's royal fleet fought valiantly to repel a massive Eldar assault of almost incalculable size. Though the Necrons eventually emerged victorious, the orbit was clogged with the spiralling and blackened wreckage of the once-proud fleets. When the Great Sleep descended, the Necrons of Zapennec had no time to clear the skies. Thus did they enter hibernation with their planet shielded by a spinning shroud of wraithbone and living metal. They are currently ruled by the former Sarnekh outcast, Thaszar the Invicible, the self-styled pirate king. No pict-file found. Sekemtar Dynasty Shemnoch Dynasty The Shemnoch Dynasty is a little known Necron Dynasty that fought the Iron Hands and Brazen Claws Space Marine Chapters upon the planet Shemnoch in 900.M41. Led by Iron Father Kardan Stronos, No pict-file found. Suhbekhar Dynasty No pict-file found.

T

Dynasty Name Notes Dynastic Glyph Thokt Dynasty The Thokt Dynasty is a Necron Dynasty located in the Segmentum Pacificus. The shifting void of the Hyrakii Deeps hid the coreworlds of the Thokt Dynasty and their legions. The Thokt Crypteks have fashioned rad-receptors into the weaponry of their soldiers, harnessed from the potent radiation of the sparkling blue energy that permeates the rifts in the sky overhead, above the crystalline continent-tombs of the Thokt. A symptom is this barely contained energy causes a shimmering azure light to emanate from their Warriors' eyes, Gauss Flayers and even the cracks in their mechanical forms. When the Thokt gather for war, the barely contained power of the Hyrakii void rifts is ready to be unleashed upon their foes.

U

No known Necron Dynasties begin with the letter "U."

V

Dynasty Name Notes Dynastic Glyph Vralekth Dynasty The Imperium encountered the Vralekth Dynasty during the Orphean War on the former Agri-World of Hydroghast, from which they are supposed to originate from. As Hydroghast is an Ocean World, the Vralekth stasis-tombs had slumbered for millennia in the deepest abysses of Hydroghast's oceans, the great depth sheltering them from prying eyes. As a side-effect of this aquatic terrain, the warriors of the Vralekth distinguish themselves by a high degree of corrosion on their Necrodermis, although this seemingly did not impact on their combat effectiveness. It remains however unclear if the Vralekth are truly a Client Dynasty or a possible scion or offshoot of the more powerful Maynarkh Dynasty.

W

No known Necron Dynasties begin with the letter "W."

X

Dynasty Name Notes Dynastic Glyph Xonthar Dynasty The Xonthar Dynasty is a Necron Dynasty that is newly-awoken from their aeons-long slumber, and have spent much of their time since the Great Sleep battling the Eldar of Craftworld Ulthwé. Early battles saw them annihilated by the black-clad Eldar; however, complex reanimation protocols and self-repair rituals keep their forces strong, even in defeat. Ruled by its Phaeron, Nemesor Varagon Drakvir, Xonthar has been aggressive in striving to reclaim that which was lost and many worlds have felt their wrath. In battle Drakvir is accompanied by his Royal Court, foremost amongst whom is Overlord R'zhan R'drah, Regent of Oblivios, a necessary, but untrustworthy, second in command, who musters the Xonthar Decurions when Drakvir is otherwise engaged. Of late, Xonthar has found itself facing a new foe, the towering Imperial Knights of House Terryn. Their haughty attitude has ired the egomaniacal Drakvir, who now readies his dynasty for total war. No pict-file found.

Y

No known Necron Dynasties begin with the letter "Y."

Z

Dynasty Name Notes Dynastic Glyph Zantragora Dynasty The nobles of the Zantragora Dynasty have but one overriding goal - to achieve apotheosis, and undo biotransference's curse by transferring their consciousness into the bodies of other sentient creatures. Their belief is rooted both in the final command of the Silent King, and in prophecies made at the time of the Great Sleep. To this end, the legions and fleets of Zantragora scour the galaxy for fresh subjects, following strict search patterns lest they somehow miss a world whose inhabitants hold the key. Progress is excruciatingly slow, and every step is marked in the blood of lesser species. No pict-file found.

Necron Dynasty Hierarchy

The highest of the Necron nobles are the phaerons, the rulers of entire dynasties, including many planetary systems. Beneath these monarchs are the Necron Overlords, who rule clusters of Tomb Worlds within their phaeron's domain. Lower still are the Necron Lords, each charged with the keeping of a dynasty's single core or fringeworld.

So deeply are these titles mired in Necron tradition that they are universally constant across all of the dynasties. However, the titles of subordinate nobles and functionaries, which make up advisory councils and specialist convocations, are subject to an almost infinite variety.

The ranking structures within the Necrontyr armies and fleets have remained constant, no matter how vast and disparate the dynasties have become. For example, every time any Necrons go to war, the title of nemesor is bestowed upon the overall commander of the battlefield or campaign.

This allows armies from across the stars to join forces, even if they have never met, and suffer no decrease in efficiency. This entrenched command structure helped ease the transition of Imotekh the Stormlord from nemesor to phaeron of the Sautekh Dynasty.

Gravs, vymarks and thantars are but a few of the titles given to lower tier Necron nobles; almost identical in terms of rank and responsibility, the only real difference arises from which dynasty the individual hails. Many Necron titles are hereditary, dating to the earliest days of the Necrontyr -- some were relatively later inventions, crafted as a means by which nobles of lesser rank could be rewarded for their service.

As the sphere of Necrontyr dominion expanded ever further, the scope and application of titles passed far beyond any form of central control. Each royal dynasty created ever more elaborate titles based on its own traditions as a means of self-justification. Like many civilisations, the more grandiose or long-winded the title, the more likely it was merely an attempt to disguise low status.

This tanglework becomes particularly byzantine when a phaeron from one royal dynasty gains sway over a world from another. The resulting protocol is tedious beyond the endurance of living creatures, but for the Necron nobility it is merely another way of whiling away eternity.

To make matters worse, if a phaeron is deposed or destroyed, their replacement will sometimes insist that all existing ranks be amended to reflect the traditions of their own house. To take such a step, the incumbent must be entirely sure of their own position, as a challenge to tradition is sure to rouse discontent within their own court.

Every phaeron and Overlord is served by a Royal Court, which assists in the administration of Tomb Worlds and the execution of military campaigns. A Royal Court consists of a group of Necron Lords, Crypteks, and in the courts of phaerons, Overlords, who owe fealty to the ruler through oath or family bonds.

Through flesh is long since a memory for the Necrons, ties of blood remain as important as they ever were to the Necrontyr. Each Necron Lord will also be served by their own lesser courts. Only nobles of the very lowest ranks do not have courts of their own, yet even these mimic their betters by keeping a circle of untitled advisors from the most acceptably sentient of their vassals.

Of course, given the paucity of wit in such advisors, these courts are but shadowed mockeries of the real things. However, in the ongoing battle for status and proper protocol among the Necrons, even a laughable court is considered better than no court at all.

Necron Legions

"What care I that my legions are faceless? Identity matters only to those who have the ability to think: my Immortals and Lychguard, perhaps; my Lords and Crypteks, certainly. For the remainder of my vassals? Well, suffice to say that the concept of glory is wasted on the inglorious."

— Imotekh the Stormlord, Phaeron of the Sautekh Dynasty, Regent of Mandragora

The size of a Royal Court is not only important in terms of political status and prestige; it also determines a noble's military status. The larger the Royal Court, the greater his seniority and the more troops under his command. Even a noble who lacks for a Royal Court commands a legion of Necron Warriors, a few phalanxes of Immortals and Deathmarks, as well as a phalanx of Lychguard.

Added to this are forces not aligned to any particular dynasty. Triarch Praetorians, the surviving agents of the vanished Triarch, fight alongside any Nemesor whom they judge to have the best interests of the dynasties at heart. Nihilistic Necron Destroyers can be lured to a battle with promises of carnage and slaughter, whilst Crypteks can be retained through acts of patronage. Few nobles, no matter how desperate their plight, deliberately seek out the aid of the devolved Flayed Ones, although as these charnel creatures inevitably turn up to Necron battles of their own accord, this reluctance is of little account.

The more senior a noble's poistion in the hierarchy, the greater the number and quality of the troops he has authority over. Furthermore, a ranking noble also has indirect command over all the forces controlled by the members of his Royal Court, who, in turn, have authority over the forces controlled by their subordinates, and so on. As even the smallest of Tomb Worlds has at least two-score nobles of lesser rank, an Overlord can commonly draw upon at least a hundred legions of Necron Warriors, should he have need.

Dynastic Glyphs

All Necrons, noble and common-born alike, are bound together by the symbol of the ancient Necrontyr Empire, the Ankh of the Triarch, as depicted above. Each of the royal dynasties also has its own glyph, the designs of which have remained unchanged over the aeons. Necron nobles bear the dynasty's mark, normally upon a death mask, cloak or sometimes as a stylised detail on personal weaponry or tokens of office. The most arrogant of nobles bear a glyph upon their breastplate in place of the Ankh of the Triarch, though to do so is to defy tradition and protocol.

Only nobles of the highest rank are permitted to bear their dynasty's glyph in its fullest form. Those of lesser rank bear only elements of the glyph, symbolising their position relative to a royal dynasty's heart of power. A handful of nobles do not bear a glyph at all -- some hail from royal dynasties destroyed during the War in Heaven, while others were stripped of rank and status for some long ago transgression. In either event, such a noble is considered untrustworthy at best, with treachery either in his past or in his future.

Dynastic glyphs are unique to Necron nobles. The common soldiery, such as Necron Warriors and Immortals, are largely considered to be interchangeable chattel by their noble masters. As such, they are thought unworthy of direct association with the proud lineage of a particular dynasty -- although the colours of their necrodermis death masks and armour sometimes echo ancient Necrontyr heraldry and thus indirectly reflect their allegiance. In contrast, Necron war engines, such as Monoliths and Doomsday Arks, are often marked with dynastic glyphs -- they are considered to be the personal weaponry of a particular noble and therefore warrant a higher status than even the Necron Warriors that crew them.

Notable Necron Tomb Worlds

"Order. Unity. Obedience. We taught the galaxy these things long ago, and we will do so again."

—Imotekh the Stormlord, Phaeron of the Sautekh Dynasty, Regent of Mandragora

For many of the galaxy's myriad intelligent species, the re-emergent Necrons are but one terror amongst many in the darkness between the stars. Even within the Imperium of Man, the Necrons are only dimly understood, with just a handful of individuals aware of the true scale of the threat they represent to Mankind's dominion over the galaxy.

Just as Necron society is rigidly hierarchical, so too are its Tomb Worlds. The most important are the crownworlds, oldest and proudest of all the Necron-held planets and the sites from which their dynasties and planetary clusters are governed. Crownworlds were once hubs of galactic power in the ancient days of Necron might, buttressed by tithe and tribute sent from elsewhere within the territory of their ruling dynasties. With access to such great resource-wealth, crownworlds were able to construct the most reliable stasis-crypts for their inhabitants. As a result, crownworld inhabitants that have weathered the slumbering millennia, without falling afoul of external circumstances, have done so in excellent condition -- though this only dampens the tragedy for the Necron race when a crownworld is lost to galactic calamity.

Next in importance for any Necron dynasty are coreworlds, planets which together form the heart of a dynasty's interstellar territory. The rulers of coreworlds would inevitably be the close kin to the regent of their dynasty's crownworld, ensuring a bond of dynastic loyalty endured between the often diverse planets. Though neither so majestic nor so mighty as crownworlds, the coreworlds were great powers to be reckoned with in their heyday and, barring disaster, are so again in the late 41st Millennium.

Finally, Necron fringeworlds are planets of tertiary importance to their ruling dynasty, not viewed as being of high enough status to be numbered amongst a dynasty's coreworlds. Fringeworlds were often poor or distant colonies of a dynasty, able to contribute to the wider realm only in terms of manual labour or as a location for penal institutions. Some fringeworlds will once have counted amongst the coreworlds of a different dynasty, but have since been conquered or otherwise subsumed into the dominion of their current ruler, thus descending in status.

There is no such thing as a "typical" Necron Tomb World. Each answers only to the will of its noble ruler, and thus his proclivities define everything from its grand campaigns to trivialities such as architectural styles and forms of address between noble ranks. Nevertheless, there is one common cause that binds all Tomb Worlds: the rebuilding of the Necron dynasties of old, and the return of the Necrons to their rightful place of supremacy over the whole of the ignorant galaxy.

The Tomb Worlds listed below represent no more than a handful of the many millions spread throughout the galaxy. Each revived world has its own idiosyncracies, and the number is ever growing. Who can say how many far-flung outposts of Mankind have their foundations set upon a planet long ago claimed by an immeasurably older civilisation, its inhabitants blissfully unaware of the slumbering horror at their planet's core. In these days of the Necrons' awakening, no world in the galaxy can rest easy...

Mandragora the Golden, Crownworld of the Sautekh Dynasty

Mandragora was always an important world, a hub for the Necron armies that did battle on the eastern rim of the galaxy. When the War in Heaven ended, Mandragora's stasis-crypts were filled to capacity with some of the finest warriors that the Necron dynasties could command. Mandragora's defences were second to none, as befitted a world of its status, and it survived the Great Sleep intact and safe from the attentions of plunderers.

So did Mandragora emerge from hibernation not only hale and whole, but with vast Necron legions at its command -- a situation its new Phaeron, Imotekh the Stormlord, was quick to exploit. Ordering Mandragora's Dolmen Gates reactivated, he sent forces to seize the many coreworlds from the Ork hordes of Warboss Snagratoof. With the Orks driven off or destroyed, the reclaimed Tomb Worlds were then awoken, swelling Imotekh's forces further. Since then, the armies of Mandragora have proved an ever-present threat on the Imperium's eastern borders, and one that continues to grow.

Gheden, Planet of Shadow, Crownworld of the Nihilakh Dynasty

Due to a devastating fault in a dimensional stabiliser array, the crownworld of Gheden is half-phased into a pocket dimension for all but a few solar hours of its stellar orbit. What was first thought of as a catastrophe has since proved to be a great boon to the Necrons of Gheden, as their world is now almost entirely impervious to assault.

Deep beneath Gheden's surface lies the Oracle Chamber, where the bulbous head of an ancient alien prophet gifted with psychic precognition is kept alive through a combination of stasis field technology and temporal stabilisers. The prophet's thoughts are projected as multifaceted holographic images which, in theory, show events yet to unfurl.

That said, the creature continually rails against his ghoulish imprisonment and obfuscates the images so that they mislead his captors as often as they are truthful.

Thanatos and the Celestial Orrery

The Tomb World of Thanatos is a hollow planet, and hidden at its heart is one of the galaxy's greatest treasures -- the Celestial Orrery. Crafted by artisans of the Oruscar Dynasty long before the onset of the War in Heaven, this web of hologram and living metal is beyond price for its artistic value alone.

Yet the Celestial Orrery is far more than mere decorative finery. The tiny pinpricks of glowing light suspended within the impossibly intricate holographic matrix record the positions of every star in the galaxy. Snuff out one of these lights and its physical counterpart in the real galaxy will go supernova long millennia before its destined time, bringing fiery oblivion to all nearby worlds through the use of technology far beyond the understanding of Mankind. Such an act cannot be performed without consideration, however, as each star destroyed in this fashion upsets the fundamental forces of the galaxy, setting off a catastrophic chain reaction of events.

Only with further manipulation of the Celestial Orrery can these forces be returned to their proper balance, and this invariably takes many thousands of Terran years of constant and precise micromanagement. With so much power at their fingertips, it is well that the Royal Court of Thanatos is not given to maniacal displays. Rather, they see themselves as the gardeners of Creation and dispassionately use the Orrery in a precise and sparing manner, pruning the galaxy only out of need to prevent it from becoming wild and overgrown.

Alas, this restraint is not something universally respected. Unending war rages across Thanatos' barren continents and in the skies above, as the armies and fleets of the Oruscar Dynasty seek to prevent the Celestial Orrery from falling into the incautious hands of aliens and other Necron dynasties alike.

Bone Kingdom of Drazak

In the extreme northeast of the galaxy lies the region known as the Ghoul Stars. Here, on worlds lit by cold rays of dying suns, tread creatures out of primal nightmares: Cythor Fiends, Togoran Bloodreeks and other creatures so alien as to seem born out of the supernatural. Yet even here, one horror outpaces all others -- the Bone Kingdom of Drazak.

Drazak is a world that serves as a haunt for the Flayed Ones, those cursed Necrons blighted by a terrible disease that has given them an irrational hunger for organic flesh. They stalk Drazak's desolate streets, fighting over gobbets of rotting meat and shards of bone, desperate to 