Technomandrites of Magistrakh

The Technomandrites of Magistrakh are a Necron faction that once stood as neutral arbiters of technology and arms merchants to all the different Necrontyr dynasties during that species' great civil war, known as the Wars of Secession millions of Terran years ago.

Believed destroyed by the Necrontyr long before they even undertook the biotransference process that transformed them into the soulless Necrons, the technomandrites reemerged into the galaxy during the Era Indomitus.

They have unleashed a conflict with the human Adeptus Mechanicus in an attempt to secure all of the galaxy's precious blackstone deposits.

Origins
The Technomandrites trace their origin to the age when the Necrontyr were still organic, humanoid beings who were engaged in the great civil war that consumed the different Necron dynasties during the Wars of Secession before their conflict with the Old Ones.

The Technomandrites were always neutral in the conflicts between the dynasties, but served a sarms merchants, selling their knowledge of weapons technology to the highest bidder. They profited from their species' internecine foghting even as their own political power over all the dynasties grew. In time, the Triarch that ruled over all of Necrontyr space and sought to end the civil wars came to see them as a threat to Necrontyr unity.

At the same time, the Triarch realised that the Technomandrites could be used as the external enemy the Necrontyr needed to find accord among themselves.

Under the Triarch's leadership, the Necrontyr dynasties turned their ire upon the Technomandrites under the pretext that no single group of Necrontyr should hold a monopoly over the flow of arms to all of Necrontyr space. As the Necrontyr's hatred of the Old Ones moved toward conflict, the Triarch also feared that the Technomandrites might also one day present a rival to them for the allegiance of the whole Necrontyr species.

The assault of the dynasties shattered the power of the Technomandrites of Magistrakh, its only remnant seen in the brotherhood of the Crypteks who served every later Necron dynasty after biotransference.

However, though nearly wiped out, a small faction of Technomandrites survived, vowing eventual vengeance and a restoration of their power over the Necron race.

Conflict with Adeptus Mechanicus
All across the Imperium after the birth of the Great Rift, primary Adeptus Mechanicus holdings -- from mining colonies to Knight Worlds to Forge Worlds -- found themselves under attack from Necrons.

The massive influx of Chaos energies unleashed by the birth of the rift had triggered anti-Warp protocols in every Necron Tomb World, and things that had lain dormant for aeons stirred once more.

The infamous Technomandrites of Magistrakh, struck down by the Necrontyr eons before, returned to seek vengeance and their lost dominion over the other Necron dynasties.

Panic rose amongst the Tech-priests, for they were already besieged from without by the Chaos and alien forces that came in the wake of the rift's creation, and the Necron threat was now coming from within.

Both sides were seeking deposits of the strange Warp-manipulating material -- blackstone -- from which the Cadian Pylons were fashioned in the wake of the fall of Cadia. Many Mechanicus strongholds had been erected upon sites containing this precious resource, and were thus often present on Necron Tomb Worlds as their hibernating inhabitants awoke.

The Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl, charged with finding a way to close the Great Rift, sent his own agents -- armies of Mars and House Taranis -- across the stars in an effort to combat the growing danger, and hundreds of battles were fought as more and more Forge Worlds were drawn into the conflict to aid their beleaguered brethren.

Even those Tech-priests that began to understand the reality of the dire situation were loath to call upon their Imperial allies for aid against the Necrons for fear of being branded Hereteks.