Konrad Curze
The Primarch of a legion of batshit-crazy marines, sometimes known as Dracula Batman the Night Haunter. A Psyker, Curze is well-known for the fact that he was plagued from the moment of his awakening by visions of the most horrific future imaginable, terrifying waking dreams that would follow him from cradle to grave. Whilst /tg/ has joked that he suffered the lamest death in history due to falling to a Callidus Assassin's blade, he remains a complete bad-ass compared to these faggots.
He's widely considered the Chaos-aligned counterpart of Corax. The two probably would've gotten along pretty well had they been in the same sector during the great crusade. He is also notable for having a name which is ridiculous even for a Primarch. (In case you didn't get it, it's an oblique reference to Heart of Darkness.)
The Night Haunter
Curze wound up on the eternally-dark world of Nostramo after the Primarchs were scattered by Chaos. Unlike most Primarchs, no one took Curze in, and he had to raise himself. It should also be noted that while the other Primarchs landed in style with awesome stasis pods like God descending from Heaven, Curze ended up punching through the Adamantium crust of Nostramo and embedded himself into the core. Where he decided it kinda sucked and dug himself out back where he wouldn't have to worry about temperature hot enough to fuck Vulcan up the ass as an infant. Nostramo was a lawless hell-hole, where crime was rampant and usually went unpunished, the rich openly exploited the poor, depression and the inability to escape one's social standing was rampant, and the population was largely kept down not through any fancy measures, but suicide. Curze was enraged by how this panned out and as he grew he decided to take manners into his own hands.
Stalking the eternally-dark streets as a sort of Space Marine Batman, Curze began hunting down heretics and those who had been responsible for turning Nostramo into the cesspit it had become. Leaders of the corrupt administration disappeared, only to be found later hung from Imperial administration buildings and beaten into unrecognizable messes that couldn't be identified without DNA testing mutilated, though their faces were often untouched so people would instantly recognize the victim. Notorious criminals were found out in the streets, eviscerated or impaled and left to die on the spires of manufactorum rooftops. Blood of those who had committed crimes flowed in the streets, with body parts stopping up storm drains.
Within a year, Curze had killed so fucking many dicks that the crime-rate of Nostramo reached damned-near zero. Society went through massive upheaval and curfews were imposed to minimize the casualties from Space Marine Batman. Mothers began to threaten their kids that if they continued to misbehave, the Night Haunter would come for them - a story that came into common use on Nostramo, describing Curze, who stalked through the city, ready to disembowel any heretic or criminal foolish or bold enough to cross his path with his favored weapon, a set of Lightning Claws. He is known to have favored the use of a Jump Pack as well.
Curze became convinced of his choices being the right ones when he saw that the people of this world started to have hope again - he had become the only thing on the entire planet that people truly feared (and hated). Seeing his moment, Curze appeared before the few remaining nobles that had survived his vigilantist purges - the only ones who basically weren't complete assholes, and gave them a choice: Obey or be killed.
Curze the Night Haunter was then made the ruler of Nostramo.
To the surprise of most, Curze proved to be a fairly capable ruler and surprisingly fair and temperate. He made strong attempts to educate himself on absolutely everything he could learn, and was noted for his moderacy in resolving disputes, worthy of a Reasonable Marine. This was, of course, until word of an injustice reached Curze's ears - at which point he would hunt down the transgressor himself, wearing them down, and killing them horribly. His unpredictable pattern of benevolence and wisdom followed by jaw-dropping levels of violence worthy of an Eversor ushered in a new level of efficiency and honesty on Nostramo, and the rest of the planet soon fell in line in an attempt to keep the Night Haunter from their doors.
The Great Crusade
Soon after Curze took over and began ruling the planet, the Emperor's Great Crusade reached Nostramo; the coming of the Emperor of Man was an event long prophesied in Nostramo's history - an event which would eventually usher in the apocalypse. The Emperor and his delegation proceeded to the Palace on foot, his radiance blinding the adapted-to-darkness onlookers and mesmerizing those who did not look directly at him.
At the end of the road leading to his Palace, Curze stood, waiting for the delegation when he had one of his visions - this one so potent, and so horrifying, that he tried to claw his own eyes out to blind himself to what he had seen. He and the Emperor then had this badass exchange:
"Konrad Curze, be at peace, for I have arrived and intend to take you home."
"That is not my name, Father. I am Night Haunter, and I know full well what you intend for me."
Awesome. Curze began training under Fulgrim, who taught him of the Adeptus Astartes combat doctrines and began molding him to be a suitable leader for his role as the leader of the Eighth Space Marine Legion - the Night Lords. Though Curze and his legion excelled in many different hotzones throughout the Great Crusade, a disturbing tendency arose in short order: The Night Lords would never use anything other than total, decisive force to achieve their goals. The Night Lords quickly adapted Curze's combat and tactical ethos, becoming one of the most brutally effective if ruthless legions in the Imperium. The Night Lords decorated their armor with iconography designed to inspire terror in the enemy - a tactic that proved incredibly effective. Where they struck, the Night Lords left examples - grim reminders of the price for disobeying the Imperium. In time it became so that even the mere mention of the Night Lords' approach would cause a system to pay all outstanding tithes, cease all illegal activities, stop downloading torrents of Blossom, and put to death any mutants or heretics.
Problems arose, however, as the Great Crusade dragged on - reinforcements to replace the Night Lords that fell in battle were, as was the case of the other Legions, selected from the population of Curze's homeworld, Nostramo. Unfortunately in Curze's absence, the population collapsed into the same corruption, criminality, and despair that had ruled the roost before his arrival. The most ruthless of the criminals were the only ones healthy and strong enough - and these were the most common replacement recruits for the Night Lords. Insubordination to Curze's orders became more frequent and he began having to deal with his own measure of "fixing" things on the criminal scum that were inducted into his forces. Making matters worse, his visions continued to worsen, increasing in frequency and in their detail.
Finally it reached the point where Curze had no choice but to deal with the problem of his recruiting world turning into a wretched hive of scum and villainy, but Fulgrim, the only Primarch Curze had any real connection with, was largely unavailable, and the other Primarchs, most notably Guilliman and Rogal Dorn, instead of listening to him and trying to help, bitched him out and said that it wasn't their problem. Curze responded by punching Dorn in the nuts and taking what forces remained loyal to him and returning to Nostramo. Curze tried to salvage things, but the Emperor's arrival had removed the one last barrier the people of Nostramo had between themselves and utter despair: ignorance.
The knowledge of other worlds beyond Nostramo inflicted a hopelessness that guaranteed that nothing on Nostramo could ever change, leaving the world to fester in corruption and depravity like a metastasized tumor. Imperial Pursuit craft, determined to stop Curze for abandoning the Great Crusade and checking on his homeworld, arrived just in time to see the lascannon batteries of Curze's fleet end the endless nightmare the planet's inhabitants had found themselves in - the only way he knew how, destroying the planet with sustained orbital fire.
Horus Heresy
Curze's actions caused him to be especially vulnerable to the whispers of Chaos. The campaigns of the Night Lords became harder and harder to justify - terror campaigns leaving a trail of devastated worlds across the breadth of the galaxy. Curze abandoned his devotion to the Emperor, instead fighting only to spread death and fear. Eventually it got so bad that the Emperor recalled the Night Lords and prepared to call Curze to task for the actions of he and his men.
Unfortunately, before Curze could be called in to answer for his crimes, the shit hit the fan over on Istvaan (where Curze saves Lorgar's ass).
When Horus turned against the Emperor with Fulgrim, Curze was quick to throw his lot in behind the brothers he had actually been able to relate to as opposed to the fucking assholes. The Night Lords remained impious, siding with none of the Chaos Gods and instead using them as mere tools to utilize in their terror campaigns. Almost entirely populated by criminals and murderers, the Night Lords, led the Dark Angels and the Lion all over the eastern fringe. The insanity doesn't end there. In the middle of dicking with the Angels, he invites Lion El'Jonson to a dead planet (Future place of palace and his own death...) to deliver a message from Horus. (Which actually predicts the Dark Angels fate of everyone hating their guts for not being on Terra because Curze has lead them all over the eastern fringe HAR HAR HAR) The Lion takes this about as well as a giant gay knight can and shoves his sword thru Curze....Who proceeds to bash in the Lion's face immediately after. (Ahhhh they luuuuuv each other.)
They got there late to the party but still got shit done, inflicting considerable morale damage on the loyalists. The Emperor however, wishing to stop the Night Lords forevermore, dispatched an Officio Assassinorum operative from the Callidus Temple to kill him.
Curze had foreseen this, however - and he allowed it. He allowed her into his palace and the Callidus encountered no guards between herself and his throne room. Confronted with the Callidus Assassin M'Shen, it is believed that Curze proceeded to make jokes about how she had butt-sex with Macha before getting down to brass tacks and explaining why he'd allowed her in so easily:
"Your presence does not surprise me, Assassin. I have known of you ever since your craft entered the Eastern Fringes. Why did I not have you killed? Because your mission and the act you are about to commit proves the truth of all I have ever said or done. I merely punished those who had wronged, just as your false Emperor now seeks to punish me. Death is nothing compared to vindication."
Whilst it's never been confirmed who came out on top (or whether or not the Callidus and he engaged in hardcore ball-busting sex), it is believed by many that Curze allowed himself to be killed, having given explicit orders to the Night Lords to allow M'Shen to escape. Only one Night Lord, Apothecary Talos Valcoran of the 10th Company, pursued her out of vengeance (the Night Lords did eventually join in pursuit, but that was only after the senior Captains realized that M'Shen had looted Curze of all his bling, which they wanted for themselves). It is believed that Curze had come to see himself as a murderous and corrupt villain - the very thing he had sought out to destroy (or perhaps he wished to prove that his decision to destroy Nostramo and join Horus was justified, as the Emperor had become one more tyrant who had to be slain). We may never know the full story behind his actions, and his final words are considered one of the most bizarre enigmas in the Imperium's history.
Multiple Personality Disorder?
Now, we all know the Black Library can range from the godly to the C.S.Goto. So this must be taken with a grain of salt. But Lords of the Night implies that Curze suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder, such that he and the Night Haunter were two different people, Konrad the just leader of men, and the Night Haunter the murderous vigilante. 'Blood Reaver' also implies it (a Night Lords sorcerer talking about how at one moment he was trying to teach his long-dead father some idealistic lesson, while at another he was only concerned about eating some slave's heart.) and shows it outright (when he has a bit of a manic episode and forgets that his First Captain died several years ago.) 'Blood Reaver' also suggests that the Emprah's DNA may not have entirely settled in Curze's body, explaining why he was so batshit crazy by the time of his death, not to mention the corpse like appearance he was sporting near the end.
The upshot of this is that only the Night Haunter fell to Chaos, while Curze remained clean. Which one got the other killed is unknown.
Gallery
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Isn't he the cutest murderous psychopath vigilante ever?
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Gothic-style Konrad.
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Perhaps the same could be said of all religions.
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Christ that looks epic. Even if it's on graph paper.
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Do not get on his bad side.
| The Primarchs of the Space Marine Legions |
|---|
 Loyalist Corvus Corax - Ferrus Manus - Jaghatai Khan Leman Russ - Lion El'Jonson - Roboute Guilliman Rogal Dorn - Sanguinius - Vulkan |
 Traitor Alpharius/Omegon - Angron - Fulgrim Horus - Konrad Curze/Night Haunter - Lorgar Magnus the Red - Mortarion - Perturabo |