Ortarna Lokk

Let the price in blood be paid, no matter the cost! Let your fear become hatred and your hatred become madness, for only when we shed the weakness of man can we hope to best the alien! –Lord Castellan Ortarna Lokk addressing new recruits of the Castobel 117th Militia Regiment

Ortarna Lokk is the presiding Lord Castellan of the Hive World Castobel, as well as a native Highborn of Hive City Trimalov. To operate under his command is to be part of dark and reckless plans against the Hive Fleet, cunning strategies and brilliant tactics, tinged with the taint of the Lord Castellan's growing madness.

History
When the Imperium returned to the Jericho Reach forty years ago, the Achilus Crusade began the slow and bloody process of reclaiming lost worlds. Most of those they encountered had long since fallen to foul Chaos heretics or vile xenos during the Age of Shadow, and opposed them bitterly.

A few however welcomed the Imperium as blessed savours. Among these was the world of Castobel, deep within the Orpheus Salient, which had through the years of blood and darkness never lost its faith in the Emperor. This is the world from which Lord Castellan Ortarna Lokk hails and the world which first brought him to the attention of the Lord Militant Solomon Tetrarchus.

Lokk comes from one of the great noble houses of Castobel, a staunch member of the Aquilan Pluracy, and was always destined for greatness. However it would take the arrival of Hive Fleet Dagon and the near annihilation of his world to thrust him into the limelight.

Once a careful military strategist and shrewd politician, Lokk spent years navigating the dangerous social circles of Castobel's noble elite, rising steadily into a position as Lord Commander Ascendant of the forces of Hive City Trimalov.

In any other time he would have been able to grow old and prosperous in such a position, contending with only minor skirmishes between rival hives or seeing off the occasional concentration of dust raiders. However his fortunes changed dramatically in the span of a few years as first the Imperium returned and then the Hive Fleet descended.

It was during the first bloody days of the Tyranid invasion that Lokk was to distinguish himself, rising up above the largely ineffectual and confused Castobel commanders to create an effective defence. Perhaps his crowning glory in these early days was his command of the defence and later retreat from Hive Trimalov, saving thousands of Imperial Guardsmen and tonnes of vital materiel from the claws of the Tyranids.

When the Lord Militant learnt of Lokk's efforts he was immediately taken by the Lord Commander's daring and tactical genius, admonishing his own generals and pointing out Lokk as an example of the dynamism and bold new thinking he wanted the Crusade to embrace.

In reward for his efforts and tactical genius, the Lord Militant decreed Lokk Lord Castellan of Castobel, making him its highest ranking military commander and giving him control of all Imperial forces fighting on his world.

Unbeknownst to Tetrarchus though, the loss of his hive city, most of his family, and much of his world to the Great Devourer had forever changed Lokk and begun eroding his sanity. This madness would be responsible for the destruction of Hive City Tyralos.

After the loss of Trymalov, one of the world's six great hive cities, Lokk was struck with worry that another of the great hives would fall, and he would once again suffer the loss of so many of his brothers and sisters to the swarm.

When the hive's fall became inevitable, he decided to cheat the swarm and secretly deployed a stormtrooper squad to infiltrate the hive. They set off a chain reaction in the hive plasma reactors which destroyed both the hive and the swarm in a pyre of atomic fire.

After the destruction of Tyralos, Lokk openly praised the defenders for their selfless sacrifice, even as he secretly rejoiced in the blow he had struck against the Tyranids.

Kill-teams which operate within the Orpheus Salient, and certainly those deployed to Castobel, will likely come into contact with Lokk. Despised by the old guard, Lokk is a young and dynamic commander of the kind Tetrarchus has come to pin his hopes on, and the successor in many ways to the lost General Mikal Curas.