Fra'al

"Of all the vices you Imp'ral possess, I find the one you call 'greed' the most fascinating. That you would sell your secrets, betray your kin-blood, and even enslave your own race to us, and for what? Mere trinkets and toys - for the least of our crafts. Most amusing..."

- Master Vray, Fra'al Satrap

The Fra'al are a mysterious, highly psychic and technologically advanced xenos race occasionally sighted in the Gothic Sector, as they are known to possess an empire within the Segmentum Obscurus.

Overview
As accurate knowledge of the legendary Fra'al is strictly prohibited by the Ordo Xenos, aside from a few scattered stories, mankind remains blissfully ignorant of this merciless, highly psychic race. The few that know them describe them as 'mysterious' and 'monstrous'. The Fra'al, in turn, know humans as Imp'ral, and enjoy subverting them through the smuggling of (to them) simple technology.

Not much is known of the Fra'al and their society. They appear to organise in groups called Conclaves, and to be led by rulers known as Satraps. They have psykers of their own, described as 'nightmarish psy-arcana'.

They are known to deploy Battlecruisers into deep space and use them to either protect their worlds from orbit (usually single ships) or they use them in pairs to raid various convoys and systems. Sometimes, operating on their own obscure agenda, Fra'al raiders may interfere with ships of other races and in some cases may even take part in open conflicts. No one knows why they fight in this way, what technology they use, or who they are.

Contacts with Mankind
During the Great Crusade, the Salamanders and the Word Bearers (amongst them, the widely lauded Eduhkar, who would be interred into a Dreadnought frame as a result of irreparable wounds) fought during the Sarapis Compliance against the monstrous Fra'al.

At another point during the Great Crusade, an entire Fra'al Conclave hounded the retreat of the 67th Expeditionary Fleet. In order to try and save the fleet from destruction, Captain Kheron Ophion of the Night Lords ordered his ship, the Killing Whisper, to stand her ground until she was destroyed. Later, the Praetor of the 67th had some fragments of her broken hull crafted into an armour called the Bloody Aegis -- as much a trophy of glory as a mark of shame and cruel jest to remind Ophion of the cost of such bravery.

In 843.M30, Rogue Trader Casilida DeAniasie engaged in battle with Fra'al corsairs and her galleass was damaged and flung far off-course, which led to her discovery of the Forge World of Xana II.

Some six hundred years before the Gothic War, Imperial Navy captains Rutgen Jago of the Lord Solar Macharius and Henryk Morray of the Vengis fought against a force of Fra'al raiders in the Osiris cluster. Also, Emperor-class Battleship Divine Right destroyed the Fra'al Battleship Sharak-Fraka at some point between 306.M41 and the Gothic War. Commodore Vandez, of the Battlefleet Gothic's 202 Red Squadron, also chased down Fra'al raiders in Bhein Morr at some point before the Gothic War. Lastly, during the Gothic War itself, the Mars-class Battlecruiser Marquis Lex spent some 1,741 days on anti-pirate duties, patrolling the Hammerhead Deeps and across the Quinrox Sound, taking part in forty-eight smaller encounters with Ork, Human, Eldar and Fra'al raiders.

Technology
There's only one known type of Fra'al spaceship, the so-called Fra'al Battlecruiser. The most significant threat from these Battlecruisers comes from the Ether Cannon they mount, which fires a pulsed energy beam at the target ship. The ether field corrodes the hulls of craft, ignoring shields. A nasty side effect of the ether field is a tendency to overload energy shields, allowing the Fra'al Battlecruiser to follow-up the attack with a barrage of Lance fire. Even the Eldar have found this terrifying craft a threat, as the ether field can affect a ship despite the best attempts of the Holo-Fields to divert and disperse the energy. The most promising factor regarding the Fra'al Battlecruisers from an Imperial standpoint is that they are deployed sparingly and raid infrequently. Xenarite Runic Priest Hieronomus Tezla of the Adeptus Mechanicus won great renown amongst his fellows for his audacious examination of a crashed Fra'al spacecraft in the Tamahl Sector and his subsequent etheric-plasma theorums.

Chaos Idolator-class Raiders are known to incorporate many systems and features which are of obviously non-human origin, some of which were probably bought or stolen from Fra'al raiders.

Another example of technology of likely Fra'al origin is the glass knife. The glass knife is a vicious hand weapon of xenos origin that has long been a staple of black market trade on the Halo Stars frontier. Glass knives are jagged, dagger-like blades, seemingly crafted from a single piece of smoky crystal. Renowned for their strength, they are sharp enough to split ceramite. Glass knives maintain their sharpness by continually fracturing tiny shards from their cutting edges, and these splinters are infamous for working their way into wounds, causing agonising injuries. Smugglers' lore among those that operate on the border of the Halo Stars attribute the blades to the legendary Fra'al, although many insist this is merely speculation.

Some Imperial diviners craft divination foci from Fra'al night shards, an arcane and psychoactive material.

Canon conflict
While in the Battlefleet Gothic rulebook a Fra'al Empire is mentioned as located in Segmentum Obscurus, and in Planet Killer #1 Fra'al Battlecruisers are stated to defend their planets, in Dark Heresy - Disciples of the Dark Gods these aliens are described as 'nomadic'.