Warhammer 40K: The Hungriest, Hungriest C’tan – The Nightbringer
There are many C’tan – but none of them are as hungry for the life force of mortals as The Nightbringer.
Known as The Aza’gorod, the Nightbringer is a C’tan. As a living god of the Necrons it survives as fragmented shards and walks the Grimdark galaxy in search of it’s next meal.
A Vision of Death
The Nightbringer’s earliest history is that of a pioneer and death bringer. Its love of pain and death is monumental, a living god of suffering and despair. When the Necrontyr first encouraged the C’tan to cross the Incorporeal Starlight Bridge into the material realm, the Nightbringer was the first to come and the first to enter a living metal body. It was found feeding on the very star that blasted the Necrontyr. Once it had become manifest, it soon learned that the life force of mortal lives tasted far superior to its previous diet of star energy and with this revelation it consumed those who had brought it into the material universe. Only through pledges of loyalty could the Necrontyr convince it to stop destroying their race and concentrate in the vast expanses of the galaxy.
The War in Heaven
This initial episode of mortal consumption led to more destruction on the behalf of the Nightbringer. At this time the Necrontyr had been waging battle against the race known as the Old Ones. They had brought the Star Gods into the mortal plane to help them in their war. The Nightbringer reveled in the war with the Old Ones as nothing but mortal souls could satisfy its hunger. In its desire to consume more souls the Nightbringer would lay waste to entire regions of space just to feed. It is said that gradually, the Nightbringer fell further and further from the original design the Necrontyr had brought it into the material world for. Namely the destruction of the Old Ones. It began to destroy and feed at will, and it reached into the minds of almost every race and planted its image into their deepest fears. It is said that it nurtured entire races to fear it and it fed on that fear.
An Insatiable Appetite
Eventually, the Nightbringer began to feed on the other C’tan. How it was persuaded to consume other C’tan is a point of contention. One source states that it was the Deceiver that convinced it to consume the other C’tan, but another document says that it was the Laughing God of the Harlequins. The Laughing God version is explained by the Eldar in The Death of Light. It was then that the C’tan began to consume one another finding that the souls of their own kind were even sweeter than the “lesser” races. However, evidently no other C’tan could match the slaughter of the Nightbringer. It was then that the Enslaver Plague occurred and the Old Ones were ultimately defeated and passed into legend.
Eventually the Nightbringer would suffer the same downfall as the rest of its remaining C’tan brethren in a revolt led by the Necron Silent King Szarekh. By this point, the Nightbringer had been gutted to the point of hubris by feeding on its fellow gods and it was brought low by the god-killing hypercannons devised by the finest Crypteks in the galaxy. The Nightbringer was convinced these weapons were being built out of tribute. The entity’s shards were bound within an array of Living Metal and enslaved.
Notable Shards of the Nightbringer
A shard of Aza’gorod was discovered in the Gulga System by the Ordo Xenos. A Deathwatch team was sent to recover the artifact, only to find the system rife with both biological and mechanical undead. After many months of warfare, the Deathwatch was able to recover and destroy the shard.
Another shard of the Nightbringer appeared on Sycorax during the Indomitus Crusade. Ultramarines, Ventris, Pasanius, and his other forces came into battle with their old foe once more, defeating it with the aid of the Mechanicum, Imperial Guard, and Titans of the Legio Astorum.
The Nightbringer had planted its name as death in the minds of many races, and is known to the Eldar as Kaelis Ra, the Destroyer of Light, while humanity simply called it the Reaper. Only the Krork escaped the fear of death. An artifact was recovered detailing a prophecy of the Eldar it states “The Master of Death will drink deep from Isha’s Eye”. It is thought that Isha’s Eye is referred to as the star Cyclo, but this has since become a dead star, possibly indicating that the Nightbringer has already fed on the star, ending its life.
Learn more of the C’tan
Lexicanum
~”Now they will know why they fear the night…”
