Trazyn

"Dear Lady, let me express my fulsome appreciation for your most generous gift. It is so very rare to discover another of my own kind that appreciates my work, therefore to find understanding amongst a member of another race is nothing short of a revelation. I realise that you briefly trod my galleries, but the fact that you spotted in so short a time that my Acabrius War collection was lacking three regiments of Catachan warriors reveals that you truly have a collector's eye for detail. And to send five regiments! Such generosity will allow me to weed out and replace a few of the more substandard pieces in my collection. If I might level a minor criticism, the instructions issued to your gift were manifestly not as clear as you thought, as most of them had to be forcibly restrained -- sadly it seems that the lower orders will always behave like an army of invasion, whether that be their purpose or not. However, this is a minor complaint and seems almost churlish under the circumstances, so please allow me to repay your gift with one of my own. Accompanying this message is the Hyperstone Maze, one of a series of Tesseract Labyrinths constructed at the height of the Charnovokh Dynasty. It is a trinket really, only of interest to scholars such as you and I, but I trust you will find it amusing -- assuming you have the wit to escape its clutches, of course."

- Hyperscroll message from Trazyn the Infinite, addressed to Inquisitor Valeria, c. 805.M41 Trazyn, also known as Trazyn the Infinite, is a Necron Lord and the self-proclaimed Archaeovist of the Solemnace Galleries on the Necron Tomb World of Solemnace. Trazyn is a preserver of histories, artefacts and events, and often "liberates" what he wants from other alien races or even his fellow Necrons so that the treasures may be preserved in his galleries. Often preforming his work through mindshackled cat’s paws and surrogate body hosts, recent times have forced him to take a more active role in acquiring additions to his galleries lest the historical treasures be lost in the flames of war forever.

Solemnace Galleries
The vast and numberless vaults burrowed through the Tomb World of Solemnace are crowded with technologies so rare and sublime that any Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-priest would give the life of several close colleagues just to know that they existed. The sunken chambers of the galleries are crowded with artefacts of all forms: the fabled Wraithbone choir of the Eldar Altansar Craftworld, the preserved head of Sebastian Thor, the ossified husk of an Enslaver, and a giant of a man clad in baroque Power Armour, his face contorted in a permanent scream, to name but a few. It is a hoard ever growing, for history is always on the march, and Trazyn strives to keep pace. Alas, few worlds willingly give up the artefacts Trazyn seeks of them, selfishly clutching onto the few meaningful things of their civilisation rather than offering them up to be preserved through the ages. In such circumstances, Trazyn has little choice but to muster his armies and take them by force -- if this results in the destruction of a city, a planet or an entire sector of the galaxy, so be it.

Most impressive of all Solemnace's wonders are the prismatic galleries, winding chambers of statuary recapturing events from galactic history that Trazyn deems worthy of preservation, ranging on scale from the last high council of the ldharae Craftworld, to the sprawling massacres on Tragus. The prismatic galleries are populated not with mere sculpture, but living beings transmuted into hard-light holograms by arcane technology. Some such statues are nothing less than the original enactors of history, frozen in the moment of triumph or defeat and whisked away to Solemnace to forever stand as testament to their deeds. Occasionally a statue will be destroyed, shattered by a malfunctioning Canoptek Wraith's collision. The collapse of a gallery's ceiling or, as happened on one catastrophic occasion, a fire fight between Trazyn's warrior-servants and the entourage of an all-too-curious Inquisitor (most of whom now constitute their own display in one of the upper galleries), have also led to unforeseen damage. Such events drive Trazyn to frustration, for he must halt his search for fresh acquisitions and seek out replacements.

Of course, few of the statues are replaceable, but there are no rules to Trazyn's galleries save those that he himself decodes upon. If he decides one of the hard-light tableaus fulfils its function with substitutes -- however inaccurate -- then he will acquire them. Fully one tenth of his "Death of Lord Solar Macharius" gallery is populated by holographic Imperial Guardsmen whose uniforms are three hundred standard years astray from historical fact, but Trazyn cares only for the spectacle, not the details of bootlaces and buttonholes. Once Trazyn has resolved to refresh his galleries, he does so with great urgency, seeking out campaigning armies, vulnerable garrisons or populated worlds with flawed planetary defences. Depending on the scale of losses, replenishment might be achieved by a few simple kidnappings by low-flying Night Scythes, or may need a more substantial mobilisation to process and catalogue portions of the planetary population.

Nor are other Necron Tomb Worlds immune to Trazyn’s attentions. In his mind, other Necrons are no more trustworthy than aliens when it comes to guardianship of the artefacts he craves. Thus Trazyn makes little distinction between artefacts held on alien worlds and those possessed by his own kind. The resulting indiscrete "liberations" have rendered him persona non grata on several Tomb Worlds. He is forbidden entirely from the catacombs of Mandragora under pain of death, following a long-ago attempt to spirit away the Staff of the Destroyer, and welcomed on Moebius on the strict understanding that his arrival will in some way improve the standing of the ruling Nekthyst Dynasty.

These occurrences go some way to explain why Trazyn rarely travels under his own name, but with his true identity concealed by pseudonym. Alas, whilst he fancies these names to be masterful attempts at deception, all are simply plucked from ancient Necron myth or fabled literature, such as Nemesor Koschai or Thantekh the Deathless. That Trazyn is rarely discovered before he is ready to make his move, therefore says more rather about the insular nature and selective knowledge of other Necron nobles than it does his own aptitude for subterfuge. Even on Ork-held planets, Tau Sept worlds and human colonies, where his dealings are conducted strictly through mindshackled cat's paws, Trazyn goes to great pains to keep his identity a secret. He knows full well that his activities have come to the attention of certain Rogue Traders and Inquisitors -- after all, the Imperium’s tangled history presents something of an irresistible lure to one such as Trazyn. Nonetheless, whilst he remains confident in his ability to outwit the plots and snares of primitive humans, Trazyn's paranoia is sufficient to force a degree of caution.

Trazyn commonly conducts reconnaissance and campaigns through surrogates -- substitute bodies into which he can pour his will. Should the body suffer catastrophic damage, Trazyn's essence simply returns to his "true" form, or otherwise into another surrogate. Not all Trazyn’s substitutes are immediately recognisable as such. Indeed many surrogates are actually Necron Lords or Necron Overlords in their own right who, unbeknownst to them, have had their bodies subverted by Trazyn. Should he need to occupy such a body, he can do so as easily as he could any other surrogate -- the regular occupant's will is suppressed for the duration of Trazyn's occupation, and the body itself instantly morphs into an exact facsimile of his primary form. Thus protected from the dangers of a perilous galaxy, Trazyn can go wherever his passion for preservation takes him.

Yet these days of caution and plotting are fast passing by. The raucous din of war grows louder in every corner of the galaxy, consuming temples, cities, worlds and even entire races long before Trazyn has had the opportunity to catalogue and "rescue" all that is worth saving. Thus, for the first time in millions of years, Trazyn is mobilising the full might of Solemnace's legions -- the better to secure entire planets from the onset of ignorant barbarians whilst a proper and detailed cultural survey is undertaken. Already a score of the Imperium’s worlds are under occupation by Trazyn's forces, the inhabitants subjugated by his implacable minions, but the undying legions of Solemnace show no signs of stopping.

Notable Campaigns

 * 739.M41 Raid on Solemnace - Following the onset of Hive Fleet Behemoth, the xenobiologists and Inquisitors of the Imperium were left with many questions that require answers. One such question brings Inquisitor Helynna Valeria to the ghost world of Solemnace, seeking an explanation for why the world had gone untouched when all other planets in the Hive Fleet’s path now lie destroyed. Nothing could have prepared Valeria for what she finds in the silent darkness beneath Solemnace’s pitted and barren surface: endless catacombs of advanced technology, long-lost artefacts from the Imperium’s history and gallery after gallery of intricate life-size holographic sculptures laid out in silent tableau to commemorate historic scenes, Valeria’s party is briefly awestruck by what they discover, but then the entire Tomb World comes to angry life. Wave after wave of Canoptek Scarabs and Necron Warriors descend from all sides and the still air is filled with the whine of discharging Gauss Weapons. Seeking to regain the initiative for her beset followers, Valeria led a charge against the shadowy figure orchestrating the carnage. Sighting carefully, Valeria unleashed a pulse from her Graviton Beamer that reduced the Necron Lord to mangled and fused scrap. Yet moments later, an identical figure emerged from the darkness, hale and undamaged. This time Valeria plunged the Dagger of Midnight’s blade into her adversary’s heart, yet even as her opponent’s sparking frame sunk to the ground, another identical Necron Lord strode forwards, trampling the now-faceless ruin at her feet. With that, Valeria ordered a retreat back to the shuttles. Only a handful of the expeditionaries that initially set out to the world survived to reach their destination, and they did so empty-handed. Much to the Valeria’s disappointment, the Tomb World of Solemnace kept all of its glorious secrets. Sometime after the conflict, Valeria personally received a hyperscroll message from Trazyn himself, thanking her for sending five regiments of Catachan Jungle Fighters to add to his galleries. Accompanying the message as a return gift was a Hyperstone Maze, one of a series of Tesseract Labyrinths constructed at the height of the Charnovokh Dynasty. It is unknown what became of this gift thereafter.

Wargear

 * Empathic Obliterator – The Empathic Obliterator is a unique Necron staff carried by Trazyn the Infinite everywhere he goes. This terrible weapon is rightly feared by his enemies, and there is a dark rumour that the staff contains technology derived from that of the long extinct Old Ones. When an enemy is slain by the staff, a psionic shockwave bursts forth from his body, potentially killing nearby creatures of a similar mind and purpose. Hence, an entire squad can be wiped out with a single blow of this horrific weapon. The Empathic Obliterator suits the personal combat style of Trazyn, as he disdains physical combat with "inferior" beings of flesh and blood and prefers to cleave them apart with as little fuss as possible.
 * Mindshackle Scarabs – A Mindshackle Scarab is a specialised Canoptek Scarab variant that is one of the Necrons’ chief methods for controlling sentient alien races. At the bearer’s command, a swarm of these tiny robotic scarabs bury into the victim’s head and bypass his or her cerebral functions, turning the victim into little more than a puppet under the control of the scarabs’ master. When released during combat, they can be used to force a person to attack his own forces for at least a short time before he can wrest back control of his mind.