Necrontyr

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Targetdrone.gif Necrontyr redirects here. For the language, see Necron Lexicon.

The Necrontyr were an ancient race of humanoids now long extinct.[1]

History

Origins

The Necrontyr's planet of origin was barren and radiation-blasted, making it incredibly hostile to life. Their bodies were ridden with radiation sickness and they lived a morbid life, constantly fearful of their coming deaths. Their cities were built in anticipation of their demise, little more than vast tomb complexes with a few temporary homes for the living.[1]

The Necrontyr attempted to overcome their mortality with scientific means, but realized after thousands of years that their bodies could not be changed to survive on the planet. Instead, they developed spacefaring technology, though of a much slower and more uncertain nature than the methods of the Old Ones. Where the Old Ones were able to move between the stars in seconds, the Necrontyr had to use slow-moving ships, equipped with stasis crypts, to reach out to the stars. They clad their ships in living metal to withstand the rigors of space flight.[1] Despite establishing interstellar colonies, the Necrontyr still could not escape their genetic curse and continued to die quickly from tumorous growths.[3c]

The Meeting of the Races

After much time, the Necrontyr met the Old Ones. This meeting between a short-lived, dour race and a hopeful, nigh-immortal one set a fire of rage burning in the hearts of the Necrontyr. From this moment on, they turned their entire lives to destroying the Old Ones.[1]

When war was declared, the Necrontyr realised they would never be able to win. They were constantly outmanoeuvred by the Old Ones' mastery of the Webway. Eventually they were pushed back to being merely an annoyance in the outer regions among the Halo Stars. The fury of the Necrontyr was cooled after many thousands of years of imprisonment, while their disgust of the Old Ones turned into an utter hatred of all life.[1]

The Star Gods

As their star had haunted their own existence, the Necrontyr studied the stars in an attempt to understand more of how they worked and to try to find something they could unleash on the Old Ones. Eventually, they found something so ancient as to predate even the Old Ones. This sentience fed on the stars they orbited but had little conception of the universe around them other than satisfying their need for energy. This was the weapon they needed to fight the Old Ones. Their etheric form made them invincible to conventional weapons. They were named C'tan, or Star Gods.[1]

How the Necrontyr managed to communicate with these beings is unknown, but the Necrontyr knew the C'tan could not understand the material universe without a physical, material body. So they made bodies for these creatures out of their living metal, allowing these tangible manifestations to expand and change at will. Supposedly, "translucent streams of force" were seen as the first of the C'tan moved across the incorporeal starlight bridge into the body forged for it.[1]

The first lifeform to come across the starlight bridge was Aza'gorod, the Night Bringer. As the creature became more manifest and intelligent, the Necrontyr began to worship the C'tan as gods for their supreme power. And the C'tan turned the Necrontyr into slaves and enjoyed ruling over them with cruelty and disgust.[1]

The Necrons Rise

Soon the Necrontyr were ready to begin the battle anew with the Old Ones. The C'tan then made a proposition to the Necrontyr that they could not refuse: immortality for their race. Their cursed flesh would be discarded in favour of bodies like their gods', made of living metal. Their old forms would be consumed and their minds transferred into the new metal skeletons with which they could continue the war with the Old Ones. Whether the Necrontyr knew the consequences of this is unknown, but their entire race was purged when they were transferred into the metal bodies. Their minds were dulled and they were forced into eternal servitude. Only a few of the Necrontyr retained any form of independent thought, albeit far reduced from their past intellect. The Necrontyr were no more, and the Necrons were born.[1]

During the Age of the Imperium, the Necrontyr became one of a thousand dead or forgotten civilisations that interested only the offices of the Explorator Archaeos.[2]

Society and Culture

Like the modern Necrons, the Necrontyr were organised into a feudal dynastic system which all pledged fealty to the Triarch, which was led by the Silent King. Necrontyr society was defined by a rigid system of honour, oaths, and obedience to ones liege. The society was divided into three social classes: The nobility and priests, the soldiery, and the commoners.[5] Necrontyr society was highly ritualistic, and even wars were said to be dominated by formality and procedure.[3c] Inter-dynastic conflicts and civil strife were a constant concern for the civilization, as reflected in the Wars of Secession.[4]

Due to their short lives and sickly nature, Necrontyr society was dominated by death. Morturary cults and funeral rituals including embalming and mummification were prominent.[3a] Upon waking each morning, Necrontyr had a practice known as the Rite of Expiscation wherein they would check their bodies for any signs of cancerous growths which heralded their imminent deaths. There was an entire sect of priests dubbed Onomancers developed to treat their affliction, to no avail.[6]

The Necrontyr put particular emphasis on the astrology, divination, and zodiac constellations visible from their homeworld. Constellations used in their zodiac mysticism included Hept[3d], Thot[3f], Vokk[3g], Thuselah, and Kasteph.[3c] These were used in hand symbols by their priests and could also express ideas. Later, Crypteks utilized these zodiac hand signs to channel their techno-arcane abilities.[3d] Before they encountered the C'tan, the Necrontyr had a pantheon of Solar Gods.[3e]

Technology

It is known that in their ancient past, the Necrontyr constructed platinum sailing barges to navigate the waters of their homeworld.[3b]

Before the coming of the C'tan the Necrontyr were a highly advanced civilization capable of establishing an interstellar empire. While not capable of matching the Old Ones, they were nonetheless masters of Material technology. Though by the time of first contact with the Old Ones they were still utilizing relatively slow moving FTL that required the occupants to be stored in stasis crypts for extended voyages. Yet even before the C'tan appeared, the Necrontyr were already utilizing technology such as Living Metal.[1]

Over the course of the long War in Heaven and with the aid of the C'tan[1] the technological abilities of the Necrontyr and subsequent Necrons greatly accelerated. By the end of the conflict the Necrontyr, now as mechanical Necrons, were wielding the very energies of the universe and creation, and upon their revolt against the C'tan utilized arcane weaponry that shattered the star gods. Today, most of the technologies wielded by the Necrons are inherited from their empire millions of years ago.[5]

See also

Sources

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