Erasmus Haarlock
Here is the tread of would-be gods and slain saints. Here is the mark of the darkness yet to come. Here creeps the crown of ancient slaughter yet unborn. Here is the fate of all. All writ amongst these cold stars.
— Attributed to Erasmus Haarlock, Rogue Trader[1]
Erasmus Haarlock is an Imperial Rogue Trader.[1]
Biography
The heir to the powerful Haarlock family on the world of Quaddis in the Calixis Sector, which helped found Imperial rule in the region, over the millennia the Haarlocks have acquired much forbidden technology and lore from Xenos they have battled. Erasmus lost his wife and daughter in the inter-familial wars that grip the Haarlocks, causing him to massacre the rest of the family and all of their associates.[1] His family was killed over the vicious wars over the inheritance of the Haarlock Warrant of Trade. This single event drove Haarlock to slaughter all others of his line, as well as become obsessed with bringing back his dead family.[3]
Earning the name Haarlock Kinslayer, he then attempted to utilize his family's forbidden lore to return his wife and daughter.[1] In his endless search for a means of achieving this insane desire he left no ancient technology, xenos-lore, or art of warp-craft unplumbed to little avail. He was left with failed experiments, bloody disasters, and empty daemon-whispered lies. At least until he found what appeared to be the answer: the Blind Tesseract. Found on an icy world in the ruins of a pre-human civilization, the chambers of the Blind Tesseract could open portals to the past through elaborate and bloody rituals.[3]
The shifting portals within the Blind Tesseract allowed Haarlock to visit the past but not change it. So he continued to watch his family's murder over and over with no ability to intervene. Eventually he would use the Blind Tesseract to find a place where he could learn the final means to achieve his desire: an audience with the fabled Dusk Hag who had eluded him in the past. Upon Dusk, He paid an unknown price to this being of appalling power and forbidden knowledge for the answers he sought. The Dusk Hag revealed that the answer to his desires lay in Komus, the Tyrant Star.[3]
Only that baleful wanderer had the power to end his desires she said, and to it he must go, though in doing so he would be utterly destroyed. Haarlock laughed at her. Had he not already sacrificed all? Was he not Haarlock Kinslayer, master of daemons, enslaver of the alien, the night traveller? Did not the death of a hundred worlds already blacken his soul? And so Haarlock returned to the Blind Tesseract and configured his monolithic device to plot a course to where no man had dared before, opened the doorway to darkness, and stepped though.[3]
Mysteriously, shortly before completing his ritual, he vanished.[1] It is rumoured that Haarlock might return from the heart of Komus, or wherever he may have ended up. The door in the Blind Tesseract that he entered and could return from can only be opened from one side. It is said Haarlock could return while Komus hangs above Dusk. If he does return it could spell the doom of billions in the Calixis Sector.
Trivia
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The Haarlock family may be a reference to the popular Leiji Matsumoto character Space Pirate Captain Harlock, who has appeared throughout the corpus of Leiji Matsumoto's prominent works.
See also
Sources
- 1: Dark Heresy: The Inquisitor's Handbook, pg. 21
- 2: Rogue Trader Core Rulebook, pg. 362
- 3: Dark Heresy: Dead Stars: Haarlock Legacy III, pg. 8
Uncited Appearances
- Dark Heresy: Disciples of the Dark Gods, pgs. 198, 202, 221, 230
