Knight Houses (Hektor Heresy)

This page details people, events, and organisations from the /tg/ Heresy, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe.

Imperial Knights are the inheritors of an ancient warrior tradition. They fight in heavily armed combat walkers nine to twelve metres tall.

Knight Households are feudal organisations of these warriors, dominated by the ideals of fealty, honour, and duty. Many are associated with Forge Worlds and owe their fealty to the Adeptus Mechanicus, though there are others sworn directly to the Golden Throne of Terra - or to the Ruinous Powers of Chaos.

Imperial Knights

House Accolon

The Sworn Knights of House Accolon
Household Grade	Secundus
Patent	Warrant of Imperial Immediacy issued by the Emperor Himself and ratified by the Imperial Court, 900.M30
Warden Domain	Cattegirn
Cognomen	The Swords of Promised Victory, the Sons and Daughters of Cattegirn, ‘The Blades of Terra’ (Post Heresy)
Allied Legions/Forge Worlds	Multiple commendations and accolades from 12 Legions (see ref: Knight/Legion co-operation), ties with the Forgeworlds of Neutros Scrayaer, Incaldion and Lucius.
Allegiance	Fidelitas Maximus

‘As he stood upon the battlefield, axe-blade raised high,

Behind the aegis of his shield roared defiance to the sky.

Tell thy brothers, near and far, of the blood and fire of war,

That on this day did Byrhtnoth’s fate, by the shield bore.’

(Laid of Dux Byrhtnoth ‘The Shieldbearer’, Knight of Accolon.)

The Knights of House Accolon have a long and hallowed history among the ranks of the Knight Households of the Imperium. They fought in the Siege of the Throneworld, and their King and Liege Lord entered the halls of Legend for her part in the Siege, being granted the eternal title The Sabre of Terra, by the hand of the Emperor's Praetorian and becoming a saint in the Imperial Cult. Loyalty is everything to the Lords of Accolon: loyalty to each other, to their liege lords, to their house, to their ancestors, to the memory of their King and the Throne of Terra she died to defend. That loyalty has endured everything a cruel galaxy can throw at it, and it merely grows stronger the more adversity threatens.

History

In the centuries since the Heresy, the Knights of Accolon have become famed for their service to the Emperor during those dark times, and the martyrdom of their King at the very Climax of the Heresy on the soil of Terra Itself. And yet the Knights of Accolon were once a dozen fragmented Households on a world split by war, and it was only through the rise of a single individual who had the wisdom, the martial might and the knowledge to unite all the Knights of that world under her banner that the Household that would play such a part in the great war would come to be.

At the time that the Great Crusade first left the orbit of Sol to conquer the Galaxy, the many households of Cattegirn were at each other’s throats in the long winded series of wars that had split the planet ever since the fall of Old Night.. The Planet had been cold, bleak but rich in metals, and many households of Knights had come into being from the goods of the earth. Additionally the capacity to manufacture small numbers of Knights was maintained, which kept their numbers stable despite the casualties in battle after battle. The Histories of House Accolon do not name when the wars between these houses first began, but by M30 they had been going on for countless centuries. Unity was a dead and distant dream harboured by very few, but one of those was the scion of a minor Knight Household named Artur Eld. He would be the first to try and unite all of Cattegirn beneath his banner. Artur Eld won several small victories and established a power base and a following of loyal Knights, and then made preparations to bring war to all of Cattegirn.

It was at this time that his Knights set off on an unknown quest. No records remain to say where he went and what he found, but whatever it was it augmented the power of his Knights and made them near unstoppable. Thus armed, he set off to end the Wars which ravaged Cattegirn.

Over the course of a dozen battles he vanquished a number of Knight Households, binding them to himself and incorporating their martial strength into his own host. This included the Battle of Guinnion, in which Artur led the storming of the breach and laid low the Knights of Ælfheah.

The Twelve Battles he fought led to the union of over half of all Cattegirn under his banner. He forged all the disparate Knight Households into one, which he named the Knights of Accolon after an old myth of Cattegirn. The other Households, fearful at his power soon united and made war against him, and he would spend the rest of his life trying to finish what he has started, and growing ever more fearful that he would die before all Cattegirn was united as one. Many feared that without an heir his death would lead to the collapse of his realm and the return to the eternal cycle of wars he was trying to end. Seeing an opportunity, the powerful leader Wystan who had grudgingly bent the knee to Eld had his ambitious daughter Myra try to seduce Artur. She failed, but still bore his child, who she named Medrat, and who would eventually try to undo all of Artur’s works.

Artur took to wife Gwenythh, the daughter of Syal of Ghent, Queen Regent one of the most powerful of the remaining Knight Households, the Knights of Nidhoggr. Four years after their marriage, she gave birth to a child, but instead of the expected son, it was a daughter, who was named Arturia after her father.

At her nativity, Artur decided to not publicly announce Arturia's birth or gender, fearing his subjects would never accept a woman as a legitimate ruler. He decided that as she was his child she would also be his heir. So her death was faked and she was sent to live with the most loyal of Artur’s Knights, the young, brave and strong Dux Uktar, the son of one of his great enemies and a child of the foreign Seaxe people from the western ocean who Artur had defeated early in his campaigns. Uktar, a noble and dutiful man if still wedded to the culture of his people, became her foster father. Uktar raised her as his own alongside his two sons, Kai and Shrike. He taught her to ride and fight and shoot and hunt, had her educated on chivalry and academics, and had a suit of armour forged for her to wear. He did not treat her as a woman, but as a warrior, and as a knight. Great hopes were placed upon her, and as she grew, she looked to become a King as wise and great as her father, one who would be able to finish his task and bring unity to all Cattegirn.

All these hopes were dashed when Myra found out about Arturia, and sensing her time had come, she publically unveiled Medrat and brought him to the Iron Hall, the great keep of Artur and the oldest of the Knight Strongholds on Cattegirn. Shocked, he tried his best upon meeting his Bastard son, but would not budge on the issue of succession. His daughter would rule after him, not some bastard son. Furious, and spurred on by his mother, Medrat had Artur poisoned and took his throne, claiming as his father’s only son he was the only heir. Uktar, upon hearing the news was tortured. He had grown to love Arturia as a true father, and did not want any harm to come to her. However he did not want the foul Medrat to rule, And after a year of Medrat’s tyrannical rule, when the foes of House Accolon won several victories and the dream of unity was growing ever more dim reluctantly he revealed all to Arturia, and asked her to take up her father’s banner and stop her bastard brother’s reign.

Arturia, despite being young, and unprepared, was courageous, determined and had a strong sense of justice and duty, and to prove that she was her father’s daughter went alone into a broken ruin that was once a Knight Holdfast and came out with Caliburn, a mighty Knight Mount that she controlled despite her lack of implants. This proved that she was machine-touched, and truly the heir to Artur Eld. Raising her father’s banner, she led her father’s loyal knights to face those who had sided with Medrat. For two years she fought many battles, always at the forefront, always taking the burdens upon herself, with her brothers at her side. Many Knights who disliked Medrat sided with her, including the great knights Gawyne and Bedieve, two of her father’s foremost servants. She met up with and slew Medrat in a great battle near Lake Camaln, and when his followers laid down their arms turned on the league of enemy Knight Households, defeating them one by one until all of Cattegirn answered to her. Her father’s dream had been made real and the Knight World was one.

Barely five years later, as rebuilding was still underway, mining operations were expanding and King Arturia was still healing the wounds of the long wars, the old scanners that still watched the empty skies suddenly found hundreds if signals coming from the stars. The King mobilised her Knights and made ready in case of a challenge from the heavens. But what came was a golden hulled dropship, landing before the assembled host of Knights, and what emerged was a living god clad in gold.

The Emperor Himself had come to Cattegirn.

To this day questions are asked as to why the Emperor Himself, at this time still prosecuting the Great Crusade alongside his Sons, would deliberately seek out and land upon an obscure Knight World far from the most vital war zones of the time. Some say that there were relics of the Dark Age of Technology on Cattegirn that the Emperor wished to obtain first rather than the Mechanicum, others that even then he saw the potential in the young King of Cattegirn and wanted her in his armies. The truth will likely never be known, but what is known is that the King of Cattegirn and the Emperor of Mankind met and spoke in private, and when they were done the King announced that from that day forth she and all her subjects would be servants of the Emperor, riding and fighting at His command for the unity of all men, not just those of Cattegirn. A week later she would leave Cattegirn along with over half her Knights, joining the Emperor’s own 1st Expeditionary Fleet where for a full decade she would fight alongside the Custodians and the chosen warriors of the Imperial Army, before leaving and beginning a long period of service alongside many of the Astartes Legions, gaining accolades and battle honours by the dozen.

One by one questoris detachments of Knights would leave Cattegirn to serve in the Great Crusade, until a bare skeleton force was left behind to train future Knights. But as battle honours and trophies began to filter back, all of the people of Cattegirn began to celebrate the exploits of their chosen warriors as they fought at the bleeding edge of the Emperor’s war of unity, just as they had fought in their King’s war for unity. Regular shipments of Knight Armours from several Forgeworlds periodically came in as part of the Emperor’s own promises to the King of Cattegirn, which allowed the world to remain independent of the wider Mechanicum to the distaste of many within the Order of Mars. The Knights of Accolon fought at the forefront of many battles, fighting with honour and fury and gaining many accolades from the forces they fought alongside. No less a person then Primarch Arelex praised the charge of Thegn Yvain during the Vogsphere Compliance, while a banner of House Accolon is known to have hung in the victory chamber of the Resolve, the Flagship of the Void Angels Legion. The fame of House Accolon brought them many enemies though, and other Knight Households routinely commented negatively on the fact that the head of House Accolon was a female in defiance of most knightly traditions, which led to much ill feeling between them and occasional bouts of violence.

The foremost Knight Household Detachment comprising two dozen Knights were resupplying at the Forgeworld of Mezoa after the end of the war against the dregs of Ullanor when the news of the disturbances in the Isstvan Sector came to light. Arturia did not hesitate to order a full Household Detachment of seven Knights under the command of one of her foremost Thegns, Thegn Esclabor to join the assault against the Traitors on Isstvan. Soon news came through of the Warmaster’s treachery and the butchering of no less then four loyal legions, and at this the King swore that she and her Knights would stand against the traitorous Warmaster and fight and die to deny him his victory, and that is just what the Knights of Accolon did. The order went out that all Household detachments were to seek out and fight the traitors wherever they may be, though the many Knight detachments were scattered across the stars, and soon Household detachments of Accolon flocked to their nearest traitor warzones to fight. On a dozen warzones across the Imperium the Knights of Accolon fought and died to deny the traitors their victory. Some of these battles were the great and famous like Zhuko V and Rosskar. Other battles have been lost in the fog of war. In every case the Household fought till the end, and one by one they died. By the time of the Siege of Terra, almost all of the Knights not on Terra were dead, and the Siege of Terra would see all the rest fall, including the King of Cattegirn herself, who gave her life to try and hold back the tide of traitors and defeat the cursed First Traitor Aubrey Himself. When the Heresy was over the Household was all but extinct with only three Knights remaining. The shattered remnants now faced an uncertain future.

Matériel Strength

At the outbreak of the Heresy Household records have that there were two hundred and seven tested Line Knights split over three dozen different Household Detachments across the Imperium serving with a dozen expeditionary forces, with another nineteen newly raised Aspirants scattered among that number. Of all those Knights, only three would survive the Heresy to return to Cattegirn. Losses were compounded by the fact that the moment one world was secured by the Loyalists, the Knights would move on to confront the nearest traitors to their current position, and refused to stop this cycle of moving and fighting until all the Knights were destroyed. Additionally, several detachments serving alongside traitor forces were brought down before they knew the extent of the treachery going on around them. The Knights of Accolon used every time and make of Knight with no preference, each Knight choosing his make of mount based on his own temperament. It is known that numbers of the Mechanicum Knights, the Maegaera and Stryx were comparatively rare compared to Cerastus and Questoris Knights. Additionally the Household had a large number of Transport vessels for moving the Household detachments around, which would come in great use when the Heresy broke out.

The Cold Heaths of Cattegirn

Cattegirn is an old world, trapped in a time well before man left Terra. The planet is far from its blue star, and much of it is bound up in great ice caps. The habitable lands between the northern ice cap and the equatorial sea are covered in great windswept moors and mighty forests. Life is hard and short, which suits the lords of Accolon. They refused any improvements to the lives they life from the Mechanicum, for the ways of the past preserved them through old night and were the ways their King once fought to defend, and make them a formidable foe to face.

The vast areas of uninhabited forests, heaths and fells are home to many creatures, from the great Wyrms that prey on the shaggy Elkens the people of Cattegirn farm, to the mighty Corvens of the icy seas, all of which provide many foes for the Knights to kill.

The people of Cattegirn are known as the Seaxe, named after the long daggers they use. Their culture is harsh, based on the blood feud and punishment by ordeal. Some feuds have lasted centuries, being passed down generation by generation. The plunder from this is the glue of loyalty, and loyalty means everything to the Seaxe.

Many separate petty kingdoms exist on Cattegirn, jostling for land and wealth. The once-true Kingdom of all Cattegirn fell apart after the Heresy when the King died, and the surviving Dux of Accolon left things the way they were. This endless conflict keeps the nobles of Accolon sharp and skilled for when they must leave Cattegirn to ride beyond the stars. All of these wars and conflicts are fight in the ancient matter of pre-industrial Terra, with sword, axe and round shield.

The community of Cattegirn is a rural one, where primarily all classes of society live on the land. At the top of the social system are the royal houses of each of the Kingdoms. Very few of the Kings are also Knights, though many of their sons are, and they are mindful of the call from the Great Hall of Accolon. Below the kings are the eoldermen, the ruling nobility who provide most of the Knights. All Knights are sworn to their House before any King or Lord, and when the muster to war comes, all other pursuits are abandoned. It is known for entire wars to suddenly cease as nobles from across the kingdoms leave Cattegirn to ride in the stars.

Livery Of House Accolon

The overcast, rain-sodden skies of Cattegirn only rarely clear to reveal the deep blue colour that the Knights have taken as their own. This blue is trimmed with silver, the colour of the rare sunlight that reaches the surface and white, the colour of the breeze-pushed clouds.

Each individual Knight of Accolon will add personal marking to his Knight, including campaign markings, army badges, Space Marine Chapter symbols and other such emblems as a sign of the many battles that Knight has fought and the loyalty shown to the allies that a Knight has fought alongside. The more markings a Knight has, the greater their standing is and the more they are respected.

The Dux Bellorum of the Household, in addition to his own heraldry bears the markings of the hallowed once and future king of Cattegirn, Arturia Eld, to show that he is the chosen castellan who will guide the Household in her absence until her return at the end times.

Rules

Arturia Eld (HQ: D Points)

The Once and Future King of Cattegirn, Thegn Rex of Accolon, Sword of Promised Victory, ‘The Sabre of Terra’

	WS	BS	S	Front	Side	Rear	I	A	HP
Caliburn	6	4	10	13	12	12	4	4	7

Unit Composition

• 1 Caliburn (Unique)

Unit Type

• Vehicle (Super-heavy Walker, Character)

Wargear

• Excalithon
• The Evalorn Shield
• Phased plasma-fusil

Special Rules

• Super-heavy Walker (Fear, Hammer of Wrath, Invincible Behemoth, Move Through Cover, Relentless, Smash and Strikedown)
• It Will Not Die
• Thegn Rex

Excalithon

Range: - Str10 AP2 Type: Melee, Deflagrate, Tempest Attack, Shatter Strike

Deflagrate: After normal attacks by this weapon have been resolved, count the number of unsaved wounds caused on the target unit. Immediately resolve a number of additional automatic hits on the same unit or model using the weapon’s profile equal to the number of unsaved wounds – these can then be saved normally. Models in the targeted unit must still be in range in order for these additional hits to take effect. These additional hits do not themselves inflict more hits!

Tempest Attack: Rather than attacking normally, Caliburn may make a special attack at Initiative Step 2. This automatically inflicts a single hit against each model in base contact with it using the weapon’s listed profile.

Shatter Strike: Caliburn may halve its attacks (rounding down) and lose Deflagrate and Tempest Attack rules to give them the Destroyer and AP1 stats instead.

Phased plasma-fusil

Range: 24" Str6 AP3 Type: Salvo 2/3

The Evalorn Shield: When Caliburn is deployed, and subsequently at the start of each of the opposing side’s Shooting phases, Caliburn’s controlling player must declare which facing the Evalorn Shield is covering. The choices are: front, left side, right side. Caliburn has a 3+ invulnerable save against all hits on that facing until the start of the opposing side’s next Shooting phase, and the strength of any Shooting attack against it from that facing is reduced by -1, the effect increasing to -2 if the weapon has the Blast or Template rules (note, however, that this strength reduction has no effect on Destroyer or Haywire attacks). The Evalorn Shield is repositioned before any attacks are carried out in the Shooting phase and may not offer protection to Caliburn’s rear. In addition the Evalorn shield also provides a 4+ invulnerable save against attacks in close combat and forces close combat attacks by other Super-heavy Walkers and Gargantuan Monstrous Creatures to suffer a -1 to hit.

Thegn Rex: When calculating the victors of any and all assaults that take place within 24" of Caliburn, the owning player adds +1 to their score. However if Caliburn is destroyed, the enemy gain an automatic victory point.

House Kazak

Title: The Suzerian Mechanicum House of Kazak

Household Grade: Secundus

Patent: Sidon Protocols sworn with the Kyuw Mechanicum in early M29, Pre-Imperial

Warden Domain: Nyeper III, Rosskar

Allied Legion/Forge World: Oathbound to the XXIII Legion, Sworn Warriors of Forgeworld Kyuw

Allegiance: Fidelitas Constantus

Proud warriors whose actions burned bright, as if to spite the cold world they hailed from, the Knights of Kazak were one of the most unusual Knight Households ever to wear the Opus Machina. Relocated from their original homeworld to that of their sworn Legion, the Knights of Kazak would be at the forefront of the war which would all but destroy both them and their new domain.

Kazak were unusual in many ways, staring with their original homeworld. Nyeper was a world dominated by large stretches of freezing plains, only broken up by the occasional glacier or hut. It was a cold, empty world where no mega-Xenos-fauna challenged the Knights, nor did invaders from beyond the stars threaten their skies in the early centuries. The Knights of this house were without challenge or rival upon Nyeper, which created stagnation for centuries. The warrior’s spirit that all Knight Households shared, while remaining strong, was blunted due to the endless inactivity and tensions slowly grew within the Household between different noble families jostling over power and status. Had not the Mechanicum come when they did, it is theorized that fratricidal bloodshed would have consumed the House.

However things changed when the recently founded Forgeworld of Kyuw, which had been standing for barely a few hundred years stumbled upon Nyepar and swiftly moved to bind the Knights to their Forge, a process that was never entirely successful. Kyuw was militarily too weak at the time to force the Knights to their knees and the Sidon Protocols sworn by the Household overall favoured the Knights much to the distaste of the Kyuw Mechanicum, though they could take comfort in how the Knights swiftly adopted the beliefs of the Mechanicum and soon became highly zealous in their veneration of the Machine God of Mars.

The union of Nyepar and Kyuw coincided with a massive upsurge in violence at a time when the Warpstorms in the region temporarily dissipated and various Xeno Foes including Eldar, Ork and other beings that took advantage of the lull to move, hunt and war with each other. And the new Forgeworld with its client Knight Household was a tempting target. For a short time the Knights found War aplenty, defending the slowly growing domains of Kyuw from xenos raiders, human pirates and other forces and then bringing war to the strongholds of those foes, extinguishing them one by one. The Household grew thanks to Kyuw’s manufactorums and became more powerful than it had ever been in the past and covered itself in glory the likes of which had been denied to them in the past, but as Kyuw’s own Titan legion was founded it swiftly took over those roles and the Knights of Kazak were relegated to a reserve force. This act only angered the Knights of Kazak further. Their martial pride and honour demanded constant challenge and change, which Kyuw had given but too little of. But they could not stand against the Titans of Kyuw and both their Nobles and their Sacristans were fully fledged members of the Martian Cult who would not brook any challenging of the new order. So the Knights chafed, but did not raise protest. The Machine God would provide.

When the Imperium came upon Kyuw and it willingly joined with Mars, so Nyepar was also brought into the fold. It was now that the benefits of the Sidon Protocols became clear. The Knights of Kazak had won for themselves many concessions in the past, most notably the right to field Ordo Questoris forces, which many swiftly did, joining the hundreds of other Knight Households fighting for the Emperor in the stars.

It was during this time that several Knight Households found themselves fighting alongside the XXIII Legion, at this time still without their Primarch and they were present when Rosskar was found and brought into the Imperial fold. It is reported that the Primarch Alexandri was highly impressed by the Knights of Kazak and requested that they remain a part of his forces. Furthermore he extended an invitation for the Knights to establish a Holdfast on his Homeworld. Alexandri also met with the representatives of Kyuw who were travelling with their bonded Knights, and contracted them to help grow the foundries on Rosskar to arm and fuel his Legion, establishing a vassal domain of Kyuw upon Rosskar Itself beneath the Urachen Mountains. In exchange Kyuw would become the main supply forge for the Legion and would gain the protection of Alexandri and his Legion.

Upon landing on The Regent's homeworld, the Knights of Kazak found themselves taken with it. To them it was filled with all that which their world lacked, mighty beasts to challenge, the promise of war and glory beyond the stars, and yet though more habitable it was the same basic climate and weather as Nyeper. The link with the Legion also further weakened the bond between the Knights of Kazak and the Kyuw Mechanicum, though that bond was never fully severed by either side and the badge of the Kyuw Mechanicum was still worn proudly by the Knights of Kazak alongside their new emblem, the ancient Rosskan symbol for 'Great Hunter' bestowed upon them by Primarch Alexandri augmented with the Cog of Mars.

The Holdfast of the Knights of Kazak on Rosskar soon grew until it rivalled the stronghold on Nyeper, and then surpassed it. By the time of the Heresy, Nyeper was only sparsely garrisoned with the bulk of Kazak’s strength either deployed on Rosskar or else spread among the dozens of Questoris forces and Kyuw Taghmatas fighting across the Imperium. It was those deployed on Rosskar who would soon face the full might of the Traitor forces as Hektor’s baleful gaze fell upon the homeworld of the Silver Cataphracts and the Knights of Kazak faced their greatest challenge.

Matériel Strength

The Knights of Kazak were never poor on Knight Armours, and at the time of their incorporation into the Imperium could boast nearly two hundred fully equipped Knights thanks to the output of Kyuw along with plentiful retainer troops of the Household. By the time of the Heresy that number would swell to near on three hundred. Of those over half were attached to various Silver Cataphract forces including the Primarch’s own Expeditionary Fleet. A further quarter were supporting various Mechanicum Taghmata forces from their sworn Forgeworld of Kyuw, leaving just over seventy Knights on both Rosskar and Nyepar to face the coming storm.

House Kazak universally favoured Knights specialised in close quarters combat like the Knight Lancer and the Knight Errant, both of which were optimised for rapid assaults, getting involved in and out of combat quickly, efficiently, and swiftly. Other knights were present, but rarer. Kazak, as a Mechanicum Household had stockpiles of the Maegaera and Stryx, used by veteran linebreaker Knights to follow up the Lancers and Errants and complete the destruction of the foe.

House Goda

The planet of Goda in the Al-Sherar Sector is home to hundreds of clans, but only the most powerful of them possess Knights. The seven great clans collectively form House Goda, a host of vicious combatants equipped with close-range weapons and marked by scars from ancient battles. The Knights of Goda are well-known for their independence, stubbornness, and violent fighting style, although also for their isolationism and constant in-fighting. Their favored suits are Cerastus-patterns, although Questoris suits are preferred by the commanding types.

House Goda is notable for having eight knightly fortresses, situates across six continents, each occupied by a different great clan (except the Bakatsu Clan, which possesses two fortresses on opposite sides of a canyon).

House Walkur

House Walkur is a distinct house of Ghalhal, and not only because it is comprised entirely of females. House Walkur's specialty is air-drop, deploying directly from transports onto enemies using specialized knight suits with built-in rockets.

Chaos Knights

House Drăcul

Title: The Knight Household of Drăcul

Household Grade: Secundus (Primus prior to the coming of the Imperium)

Patent: Warrant of Imperial Immediacy re-instated by the Imperial Court, 899.M30

Warden Domain: Olt-Argeş

Cognomen: The Lords of the Olt-Argean Empire, the Dread Impalers

Allied Legions/Forge Worlds: ties with the Forgeworld of Anvilus, later supplanted by ties to the Warmaster

Allegiance: Traitoris Perdita

Even before the Heresy the Knights of House Drăcul were feared for their utter ruthlessness and lust for power. They had been brought into the Imperium by force, the small stellar Empire they once ruled shorn away from them by the hand of the Emperor. Bitterly the Knights served the Imperium, though they never forgot the insult and when Warmaster Hektor offered to help them regain their power and status and their lost Empire, the Household willingly marched with them into treachery.

History

The Knights of Drăcul were one of many Knight Households seeded across the stars, though early on they distinguished themselves and showed the ambition they had. All Knight Households had ambitions, but most of those were internal, the struggle for supremacy within the Household. Drăcul however externalized that, making it into a struggle of the Household against the galaxy around them. The Knights of Drăcul were highly unified behind their Voivodes and Boyars and presented a united front against any foe, making them a dangerous enemy to face. From the Fortress Keep of Uhorsko on the mountainous planet of Olt-Argeş the Knights of Drăcul looked out enviously at the systems around them and harboured dreams of conquest. While that may have been as far as it would have gone, events soon fed that hunger and gave it life. As the Age of Strife began to descend and planets began to fall out of communication with one another due to the rising tides of the Warp, the Knight Household seized the chance now offered to it. The nearby systems were shorn away from any defence and helpless before the Knights. Drăcul deliberately landed companies of Knights upon the neighbouring two systems of Debriesen and Molda under the pretence of ensuring they didn’t fall into anarchy. The power of the Knight Armours ensured that the worlds swiftly surrendered and let the representatives of Drăcul dictate terms to subsume those worlds to the rule of Olt-Argeş. However though the conquests were almost entirely bloodless, the aftermath was far from it. The Knights did not make effective rulers, their neo-feudal system at odds with the political and cultural level of those newly annexed worlds and resistance soon developed, which drew ever increasing reprisals. Eventually the Knights of Drăcul began to impale those who resisted and displayed their bodies along the roadside of the roads leading into the capital cities as a warning. This finally broke resistance and Debriesen and Molda folded into the fray. Thanks to the STC Machines the Knights had preserved and the influx of raw materials from the subjugated worlds, the Household expanded far beyond that of most Households existing at the time. Additional Holdfasts were established on each of the worlds ruled by Drăcul and Knights were drawn from the planetary nobles. This expansion fuelled the drive for conquest, and soon an entire army of Knights led by Voivode Radu assaulted the mining world of Bzura, routing the Planetary Militia and occupying the planet. This would be repeated multiple times as a cycle of conquest, consolidation and expansion overtook the Knight Household. The problems with Warp Navigation limited how far or fast the Household could move, but soon all the planets nearby feared the drop ships from beyond the stars and the armoured engines of war they carried.

By the time of the Great Crusade the Empire of Olt-Argeş directly ruled nine planetary systems and indirectly a further five as tributaries, and House Drăcul could boast over six hundred line Knights, making it one of the largest Knight Households in the Galaxy. That empire was stable but subjugated, and harshly ruled. Death was the only penalty for any crime, regardless of class or station if a crime was committed the perpetrator was publically impaled for all to see. Resistance was crushed without mercy and entire towns would be razed if even a single member spoke out against the Knights. Eventually the forces of the Great Crusade came into contact with this Empire and after discovering how the Knights ruled their worlds their continued dominance could not be tolerated, However the Household’s size and obvious martial prowess made it an attractive addition to the Imperium’s armed forces. So an envoy was dispatched to convince the Knights to join the Imperium, loosen the shackles of their Empire and join in the Great Crusade. However the ruling Voivode of Drăcul at the time, Voivode Laiotă would not countenance this. He would not see the Empire his ancestors had built be weakened or removed and he would not bow down before any warlord from the stars. He had the Imperial Envoy impaled and her body displayed on the highest peak of the Knight Fortress on Olt-Argeş. Retribution was swift as the Imperium dispatched an entire Legion Battlegroup to deal with the Knight Empire. Primarch Arelex of the War Scribes and over 40,000 of his Legion along with two dozen Titans of the Legios Osedax and Unceliga descended upon the realm of the Knights of Drăcul. Over half the Household, three hundred and seventy Knights were destroyed in battles on Bzura, Molda and Gardynia as the Empire was shorn away, the worlds freed from the rule of the Knights and incorporated into the Imperium. In the climactic battle on Debriesen Voivode Laiotă was killed by Arelex personally and the remaining Knights capitulated. The Knights of Drăcul who once ruled an Empire of their own now found themselves subjugated to the Imperium. Most of the remaining Knights of the Household were dispatched out to the Great Crusade as penitence for their war with the Imperium, the STC Machines that had allowed the Household to grow so large were removed and sent to Mars and their empire was stripped from them and made into free and independent worlds of the Imperium no longer subject to the harsh rule of Drăcul.

In the Crusade the Knights of Drăcul swiftly gained a reputation for coordinated assaults, unified teamwork and measured savagery. They were not as fractious as many other Knight Households, willing to work closely with allied forces and capable of executing highly complex battle plans with near perfect timing. However their methods were brutal. Many times on human worlds that resisted compliance Knights of Drăcul would impale enemy combatants onto the hulls of their Knights when they rode into battle to show the foe what the cost of defiance was. This brutality and their cold disdain for allies off the battlefield gave them a dread reputation, though few were ever willing to spurn the aid of the warriors of Drăcul. However the Knights never gave up the dreams of their forefathers, of reclaiming their empire and gaining revenge for the wrongs the Imperium had heaped upon them. Most believed that they would regain their position with service to the Imperium and fought all the harder for it. But as the Crusade reached its finishing stages that dream began to fade. The worlds once claimed by Drăcul were now prosperous worlds of the Imperium and none would willingly subject themselves to the renewed rule of Olt-Argeş. At this time Voivode Vintilă was killed in action on Ullanor and his son Petru became Voivode. Petru had served alongside the Heralds of Hektor and was a known figure within the Legion, having been decorated by the Primarch Himself. With Hektor recently made Warmaster, Petru planned to use his influence to raise the status of the Household and help regain much of what it had lost. Petru and a Household detachment of two dozen Knights joined the Heralds just before their visit to Cadia and when the Warmaster fell to the poison of Aubrey he offered the lords of Drăcul their empire back and the chance to regain their former glory if they joined him in rebelling against the Emperor. So the lords of Drăcul were the first Knights to fall, and time would give them a dark reputation unmatched among all the traitor Knight Households.

Matériel Strength

By the time Hektor became Warmaster, the Household was believed to be able to field three hundred line Knights, a sizeable amount but still barely half of what the Household had before the coming of the Imperium. Most of those were Paladin and Errant suits, with very few of the Cerastus Chassis and even fewer of the Mechanicum variants such as the Magaera and Stryx. It is known that the Warmaster’s Mechanicum allies supplied hundreds of Knight Armours to the Household throughout the Heresy so that by the time of the Siege of Terra it came close to rivalling even the massive Knight Household of House Raven. The Knights of Drăcul had a unique rank system. The head of the Household was the Voivode, a direct descendent of the Lord Drăcul, founder of the Household. Beneath him was the Boyars, who acted as both seneschals and governors of the local districts each Knight Detachment was assigned to. The line Knights were known as Druzhina, and were the sons and in some cases daughters of both the many minor nobles who served Drăcul and in some cases on many of the subjugated worlds local nobles who had proven themselves to the Household and had shown the ability to command a Knight. They were among those who most keenly felt the loss of the Drăcul Empire and who were the most willing to fight for it and in the end, accept damnation for it.

House Castus

KHORNE KNIGHTS RULE!